RÖYKSOPP & ROBYN – Do It Again
1. Monument
2. Sayit
3. Do It Again
4. Every Little Thing
5. Inside The Idle Hour Club
When different musical artists collaborate the term ‘Best of both worlds’ is quite often used. But wouldn’t it be actually more thrilling to leave these worlds aside and create a new one? That might have been one goal of Norwegian electronic duo RÖYKSOPP and Swedish pop superstar ROBYN when they joint forces for their Do It Again project – creating something that doesn’t fit in their usual musical environment. Of course, that isn’t entirely possible in reality. But the result still remains an entertaining musical joint venture.
Both parties already worked together on The Girl And The Robot from 2009’s Junior album by RÖYKSOPP. The start of a great friendship. We don’t know what came first – the idea of collaborative festival tour or the EP. Maybe both things went hand in hand, now ultimately resulting in one of the highlights from the upcoming festival season and also these five joyful tracks. RÖYKSOPP and ROBYN manage to switch between their musical worlds easily and also make a bit space for new adventures.
Monument opens the EP as smooth and haunting slow grooving piece of synthpop. Feels like a soundtrack contribution from a forgotten 80s sci-fi classic. The atmospheric and ambient-like outro definitely got the handwriting of RÖYKSOPP, especially the saxophone. The epic ten-minute-long piece is a brave start for the release. Right after it Sayit takes us right onto the dancefloor. Over six minutes of acid-dripping dirty rave material. We would be highly disappointed if these three won’t use giant lasers during the performances this summer.
Right after this, the title-track marks the clearest pop approach on the album. Could have also been on ROBYN‘s Body Talk releases from 2010. Catchy EDM-pop with hit quality. Every Little Thing slows things down after this, unfolding itself as a midtempo electropop ballad. Inside The Idle Hour Club ends the EP the way it started – with an epic ten-minute-long piece of ambient music that once again is closer to RÖYKSOPP‘s musical roots than to the ones of ROBYN. When there’s nothing left to loose why not risking an experiment? You can almost sense the enjoyment the two gentleman and their female friend had while recording these songs. It’s fun, yes – but it mostly makes us hungry for the new stand-alone work of these brilliant artists which might hopefully arrive within the next year.
RÖYKSOPP and ROBYN use their split EP ‘Do It Again’ to combine the best of both worlds while also discovering new musical territory – an entertaining experiment.
NBHAP Rating: 3/5
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