Röyksopp: Like Olympics And Presidents
Röyksopp aren’t the most prolific of European electronic groups; they happen to be releasing two albums this year, but they are only the third and fourth since their formation in 1998, and they don’t release a lot of rare and special edition EPs and singles in between like many of their peers. It’s been four years since their last album, The Understanding, and it was four years before that for their first, Melody A.M.
Junior, out in March, is the more upbeat ‘spring’ record, while Senior will be released later this year as the downtempo ‘autumn’ record. No doubt we’ll be hearing plenty of both at the Festival this year. Junior is not at all a drastic shift in their sound; it hews pretty close to their previous two as exceptionally catchy dance (mostly) music with amazing sound. They’ve always felt darker and consequently more intellectual than, say, Basement Jaxx (also at the Fest this year, by the way—a nice one two punch if you ask me, as two of the best purveyors of pop electronic music that still keep their cool-kid cred), but much more danceable than so-called IDM, and never venture into the sometimes sonically unpleasant experimentation of that genre. They continue to be dependably very good, and I’m thinking hearing them in action should be pretty fantastic.
Röyksopp on Myspace
-kern
