Royksopp

Norwegian electronic music duo Royksopp is the most known representative of so called Bergen Wave of electronic music. It consists of Tornbjorn Brundtland and Svein Berge, both born in Norwegian town Tromso and both fans of electronic music since childhood. Brundtland and Berge have begun playing together in the early 90s, when they were at the age of 18. However, it was more of a hobby than of profesional music for them. Later they split up and met again in 1998 in Bergen, where they decided to form a band named Royksopp (this name can be literally translated as «smoke mushroom»). Bergen was a vital scene for Scandinavian electronic and indie-music at this time, so Royksopp performed together with such Scandinavian musicians as Frost, Kings of Convenience, Those Norwegians, Drum Island and so on.

Brundtland and Berge released their first album Melody A.M in 2001. Ironically, their debut record managed to draw attention of electronic music fans because songs from the album have been used in television adverts and computer games. For example, first single Eple (which is translated «apple» in English) was licensed by Apple and played as a welcoming music Mac OS X Panther. A remix of Poor Leno was included in snowboarding video game SSX 3, while Follow My Ruin was used in FIFA 06 soundtrack. However, real success came to Royksopp after they released several graphically experimental music videos. Video for the single Remind Me has even won the 2002 MTV Europe Music Award for Best Music Video. The band was also nominated for Best Nordic Act, Best New Artist and Best Dance Act awards, but did not won any of them.

Royksopp's second studio album The Understanding was released only four years later. This time, a music video for the first single, named Only This Moment, was based on the Paris 1968 students’ riots, so some people found elements of extremism propaganda in it. However, the next single 49 Percent was not so controversial. Later Royksopp released a deluxe edition of The Understanding, featuring the second disk with five additional songs. In 2006 Royksopp released a nine-track live album Royksopp's Night Out. More dance-styled than the band’s previous records, it featured cover version of the song Go With The Flow by Queens Of The Stone Age. Before the album hit the stores, Royksopp have stated that this disk was originally meant for the Japanese fans, the most enthusiastic Royksopp-fans, according to the band members.

In 2007 Royksopp recorded Back To Mine – this album featured the remixes on the duo’s favourite tracks by other artists, including Talking Heads’ song Born Under Punches, Above And Beyond by The Edgar Winter Group, It Ain't Easy by Supermax and so on. The album also featured track Meatball, originally recorded by Royksopp themselves for Mike Oldfield’s album Platinum under the name Emmanuel Splice. Actually, Back To Mine is a series of mix albums under the same name, recorded by famous composers of electronic music. Royksopp’s work was released as an anniversary Volume 25.

Finally, in March 2009, Royksopp’ third studio album Junior hit the stores, preceeded by the single Happy Up Here. The music video for this song was based on an old classic videogame Space Invaders, which was being played in the real world while the music sounds at the background. Junior featured Grammy-nominated Swedish pop singer Robyn and other Scandinavian artists – Lykke Li, Karin Dreijer Andersson and Anneli Drecker. All in all, the new album was described as a mix between the styles of the two previous Royksopp’s studio albums, Melody A.M. and The Understanding. After Junior’s release Royksopp unveiled their plans to issue another studio album until the end of 2009, however the record Senior saw the light only in 2010. Atmospheric and, as the musicians themselves described it, album with an autumn mood, Senior