Tromsø, Norway · electronic · downtempo · synth-pop

Röyksopp

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Norwegian duo who have spent 25 years alternating between glacial downtempo and outright pop, usually with a guest vocalist worth the wait.

Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland met as children in Tromsø, in the far north of Norway, introduced by a mutual friend when Berge was twelve and Brundtland thirteen. They bonded over shared taste in film and electronics, bought a drum machine together, and became part of the small techno scene forming in the city in the early 1990s before drifting apart for a few years.

The pair reunited in Bergen in 1998, during what became known as the Bergen Wave, working alongside musicians such as Erlend Øye of Kings of Convenience. Before settling on the name Röyksopp, taken from the Norwegian word for puffball mushroom, they had recorded as part of a group called Aedena Cycle with Gaute Barlindhaug and Kolbjørn Lyslo, releasing an EP called Traveler's Dreams in 1994.

Their first single as Röyksopp, "So Easy," came out on the Bergen label Tellé and later reached a wider audience after being used in a UK mobile phone advert. Signed to Wall of Sound, they released their debut album, Melody A.M., in 2001; it went platinum in Norway, sold over a million copies worldwide, and set the template of warm downtempo, house rhythms and melancholy melody that became a reference point for a generation of Scandinavian electronic music.

Subsequent albums, among them The Understanding, Junior, Senior and The Inevitable End, moved between instrumental pieces and outright pop songs, usually built around invited singers. Their long-running collaborations include work with Robyn, Karin Dreijer and Susanne Sundfør.

Röyksopp have been nominated for two Grammy Awards and have won seven Spellemannprisen, the Norwegian record industry's own awards, and their live shows are known for elaborate staging and costume. Their more recent Profound Mysteries project returned to that same model of guest voices set against wide, slow-building synthesiser arrangements.

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electronicdowntemposynth-pop