Robot Music

2009, EMI Music France.  Silent for nearly three years, Norwegian duo Röyksopp are back with the first of two albums to be released in 2009.  Junior, which is to be followed by a more introspective Senior later in the year, moves further into the electronic pop/dance with guest vocalists formula that they exploited so expertly on 2006’s The Understanding.  Indeed, their best moments live in the synergistic collaborations with guest vocalists like Karin Dreijer of The Knife, swedish pop star Robyn and Lykke Li.  Collaborations with Anneli Drecker, formerly of the goth-meets-Enja group, Bel Canto don’t fare so well, though.  They all share writing credits so it’s no wonder that the songs take on as much personality from the guest vocalists as from Röyksopp themselves.

Easily the two strongest tracks, Karin Dreijer’s Tricky Tricky and Robyn’s The Girl And The Robot show how a good collaboration can create something whose whole far surpasses the sum of its parts.  The Girl And The Robot is a slightly melodramatic, throbbing piece of electro disco that, in it’s pop perfection, may feel a bit like a guilty pleasure, but as with all good pop, works its way into your head and won’t get out.  Album stand-out Tricky Tricky is only 6 minutes long, but feels epic.  A relentless beat and urgent electronic bassline combine with Karin Dreijer’s typically energetic and spooky vocals, delivering a dark techno stomper.  Until the last 1:15 that is, when rays of light peek through the dark clouds and it’s all hopeful chord progressions riding on Moroder-style arpeggios, still foiled of course, by Dreijer’s subtely demonic vocals.  A brilliant turn I’d say and it has me salivating for another album from The Knife.

Anneli Drecker’s tracks just don’t seem to gel like the other collaborations.  I always loved her voice in Bel Canto, but it seems out of place on this modern collection of tracks.  Taken without the vocals, You Don’t Have A Clue and True To Life are perfectly competent and enjoyable Röyksopp tunes.  Add Anneli’s vocals though and the tracks become too “adult contemporary” or techno-Enya, if there ever was such a thing.  Well, I suppose that now there is.

The current single, Happy Up Here sounds an awful lot like their earlier track Eple, but it’s such a happy, carefree romp that you can’t help but like it.  Aside from the two Anneli Drecker tracks, there isn’t a bad track on the album and as was the case with The Understanding, there are some really great moments here.  And this is just the beginning, because you know we are in for a slew of interesting remixes.  And then there’s Senior. It’s a good year to be Röyksopp- and an even better year to be listening to them.  -RM

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