IT'S SO EASY
Dec 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By Ken Micallef
Just when no one thought they could stomach yet another chill-out compilation, Norwegian sly guys Röyksopp elevated the genre to another level. Winning various MTV Europe and Album of the Year awards has not swayed Röyksopp's mission to make sweet electronic soul music. Their space-shifting Melody A.M. (Astralwerks, 2002) floats over ambient house beats and enchanted samples with all of the humor and grace of the good witch of the North in The Wizard of Oz. The album kicks off with “So Easy,” a fluffy track that recalls a '60s game show — complete with a sample from “Blue on Blue,” a Burt Bacharach — penned tune popularized by Bobby Vinton.
“We knew it was a Burt Bacharach track,” says Torbjorn Brundtland, who with Svein Berge make up Röyksopp. “We respect Bacharach for his melody-writing ability, but we didn't sample the Bobby Vinton version. This one is by a Swedish easy-listening choir from the '60s called Gals and Pals.
“We made ‘So Easy’ so easily,” he continues. “It was made with an old Akai sampler, an Atari sequencer and a Boss RX channel mixer, which has only bass and treble EQ; if you want mid, you turn down both. We were poor then, in one of the richest countries in the world. But we didn't wimp out. We did it with minimal equipment.”
The duo creates swashbuckling grooves in “Eple,” billowing harp solos for “In Space,” Kraftwerk-inspired love poems in “Poor Leno” and urban symphonies for the fantastic “Röyksopp's Night Out.” Although Brundtland and Berge played guitar, keyboards and synth, they claim that minimalism is their guiding principle. “We discard and trade things so that we end up with what we want and like,” says Brundtland. “We could not open a synthesizer museum, unfortunately. But if we go on, we will be able to open a museum of vintage synthesizers in our middle age.”
Röyksopp count among their gear the new Akai Z4 sampler, Steinberg Cubase, a Korg MS-20 and various laptops, but given that the duo won't allow journalists into their studio, mum is, for the most part, the word. “If we were given the newest synths, we could have come close to what our sound is,” says Brundtland. “But it would be too flat and too streamlined. We use older synths. It is no secret that we use the Korg MS-20, which is not rare, but very versatile and old, from 1978. We have other gear, but we don't want to say what it is.”
Röyksopp also keep their working methods close to the chest, but Brundtland is forthcoming about the expert harp solo in “In Space.” “We don't like preset sounds, but that is a preset from a Roland synthesizer,” he says. “The velocity lets us blend hard and soft hits together. It gave us that flow. We are proud of what we do and our programming abilities, but we don't feel that we have been showing off. You can do that in other music, like all those guitar solos in the '80s. You can draw a line from that to today's drum 'n' bass programmers. They show off, but we never feel the need to do that. We just want to make it sound good and like it's easy to make. It is supposed to sound natural.”
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