Moving into the final part now, which gets off to a rocky start with Malangen Fra Bruhodet. Ain't nothing wrong with it, it's perfectly serviceable on its own and all but it does feel a little half baked in the grand scheme of the free tunes so far. There's nothing here to really grab you, just some easy going easy listening, wouldn't be bad as a website loop like what Boards Of Canada used to do tho.
All doubts take a backseat immediately though, and we're treated to something that in it' own rights could have been a B-Side to Junior. The vocal contribution is a tad bit different from Junior but the spirit is there, I can see why it was nixed tho, it's certainly more electro influenced than the rest of the LP. It's crying out to be on an EP, I certainly would have liked to hear MSTRKRFT or the like give their hand to those already punchy kickdrums. Actually come to think of it Felix Da Housecat would be a fitting candidate for it too, the 'Sopp lads themselves remixed What Does It Feel Like? for him back when and it'd be nice to reincorporate some of Kittin's vocals here.
Shoulda held off on this one for another month or whatever, but here we go. It is what it says on the tin, Röyksopp did an electronic cover of Le Cantique de Noel. It's nice to have some more electronic Christmas music rather than just making a winter playlist. This is where I think parts of Senior start to shine through, the overall structure is very reminiscent of the album but not quite as ambient, but saying that the intro is a real soothing listen.
And finally, ironically enough the tune that was the hardest to get hold of, Stronghold. It really harks back to their Melody A.M. days stylistically, very understated with smooth sounds and hint of vinyl crackle. Small flourishes throughout keep it an interesting listen; true ambient in that it works both as background accompaniment or active listening. I would have liked to see them go out on a more upbeat tone but then again this is a little more in line with Senior which would have been fresh in mind then.
And that about wraps it up, there is however one more bonus tune they gave out, I don't recall whether it was for another late Track Of The Month or what, but the good news is I not only already had a copy, but it was very very easy to find (and the one I found was even better quality than the one I had). It's called Shores Of Easy if you'd like to hear it for yourselves, I'm keeping it under my hat for another day, it's a 14 minute Röyksopp jam session and it is lovely.
-Claude Van Foxbat
No comments:
Post a Comment