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Do That Stuff

Now I know it's not even April, but I can already say that Junior from Röyksopp will be one of my favorite records of 2009. Man, is this sweet.

Here's how the pros at Amazon.com synopsize:

Junior is Röyksopp's most accomplished release yet, an inspired and ambitious musical confection fusing pure pop hooks with "technoperatic" dancefloor slammers. Featuring a team of top female vocalists/collaborators including Swedish superstar Robyn, Lykke Li, Karin Dreijer (The Knife) as well as fellow Norwegian Annell Drecker (who appeared on Royksopp's debut Melody A.M.).

And while the vocal tracks are great (especially "Tricky Tricky" featuring Karin and "The Girl And The Robot" with Robyn ripping it up), one of the cool things about Röyksopp has always been their ability to make instrumental tracks that are soaring and engaging without ever being faceless. Their leadoff track from Junior is "Happy Up Here," and while it features relatively anonymous chorus-vocals (and it's driven by a cheery melodic sample from "Do That Stuff" by Parliament), it's a great example how Röyksopp manage to turn all those bits of particulate matter into stardust. And the video? Totally awesome, especially if you're old enough to remember Space Invaders.

Junior comes out on Tuesday [3/24]. Buy it. And check out this remix of "Happy Up Here" by Boys Noize.

Comments

  1. marlfoxMarch 25, 2009 at 11:49 PM

    That video for "Happy Up Here" is really truly amazing. The song has a good hook too, wish they had done more with it, but I guess that's the genre. Definitely warrants checking the band out though. I don't listen to a lot in this genre, the closest thing to this I've spent any time listening to would be Unique (Hungarian Techno Pop). I thought he video was pretty well done for the song "Tükör" Check out it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM_V9fCahs8

    ReplyDelete
  2. Erick HaightMarch 27, 2009 at 11:37 AM

    As that's the first song on the record, there's no way they could have added more hooks without killing people with glee. But yeah, developing that song a bit further wouldn't have been bad.

    ReplyDelete

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