Royksopp : Melody AM

Norwegian duo whose warm and fuzzy ambient dance album even features the Kings' Erlend Oye singing on two tracks.

Kings Of Convenience assert that quiet is the new loud; trendy dance compilations point to Norway being the new France; and rocketing sales of ambient music suggest that chilling out is the new stressing out.

It all adds up to good news for Royksopp, the Norwegian duo whose warm and fuzzy ambient dance album even features the >Kings ‘ Erlend Oye singing on two tracks. Throw in the facts that the weather’s getting colder and the nights are drawing in, and suddenly Svein Berge and Torbjorn Brundtland’s snow-dusted Horlicks house looks as unstoppable as an avalanche.

The music is a spectral combination of bleepy 80s synths, lightly crunching backbeats and dreamy vocals; the mood is pure post-clubbing afterglow, in bed with your loved one, in some snowbound Ikea log cabin. Sounds nice? It is. ‘In Space’ sprinkles rippling harps over sighing, sampled strings, ‘Royksopp’s Night Out’ suggests a few hours spent under the Northern Lights rather than a mirrorball (or indeed table), the swaying sample in ‘So Easy’ irresistibly evokes images of the cuddly monsters from ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ and ‘Poor Leno’ is eerie, strangely homoerotic, disco.

If ‘Melody AM’ goes a bit coffeetable in parts, that’s because it’s an album for the home, to hibernate with. If summer’s Balearic, then let winter be Baltic Beat.

Alex Needham

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