Spring Break
Röyksopp grows up on 'Junior'
by Brad Stern
Staff Writer
Arts | 4/7/09
Posted online at 11:28 PM EST on 4/6/09
/ Last updated at 5:48 AM EST on 4/6/09
The boys of Röyksopp have been hard at work over the past three years conjuring up their third major album, Junior. Like a Nordic creation of Frankenstein proportions (I'll allow time to envision the monster as a blonde), the album operates as a complex series of mixed bits and pieces and pastes together the moody beats of Melody AM with the tenderest bits of pop-mindedness from The Understanding.
To do so, the duo has enlisted a superstar cast of Swedish chanteuses, including Lykke Li, Robyn, Anneli Drecker and Karin Dreijer-a line-up indie-licious enough to make the pants of the Pitchfork crew grow even tighter at the waist.
With a burst of giggles, Röyksopp bounces into Junior with the mindless gleefest that is its first single, "Happy Up Here." Ironically, it's also the album's weakest moment-not quite an instrumental, not yet a full-fledged song. Sure, it's got all the makings of a Röyksopp track (looped beats and breathy lyrics), but it's mainly a teaser for things to come.
That's probably why "The Girl And The Robot" follows shortly thereafter. Undoubtedly one of the coolest songs Robyn has recorded in recent time-though let's face it, she hasn't truly recorded anything new in the past five years-the track is a stomping, stuttering 21st-century upgrade of a classic torch song: "Fell asleep again in front of MTV / God, I'm down at the bottom / No one's singing songs for me / I'm in love with a robot." Then again, has there ever been a song involving robot love that hasn't proven itself entirely amazing? Doubt it.
After that comes "Vision One," a song I'm still holding responsible for no fewer than three slipped discs in my neck. Why? "Vision One" happens to be a cover of a track originally sung by a ridiculously underappreciated J-Pop artist named Eri Nobuchika that the group first remixed in 2005. Hearing those opening notes reimagined through bright piano melody and some lo-fi electronica for the very time, my head whipped forward faster than I could shriek "Oh my God, it's 'SING A SONG.'" As a result, I'm still healing.
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