1) So Easy; 2) Eple; 3) Sparks; 4) In Space; 5) Poor Leno; 6) A Higher Place; 7) Röyksopp's Night Out; 8) Remind Me; 9) She's So; 10) 40 Years Back/Come
Nordic cool, chill yet with a lively energy. Defining the turn-of-millennium sound and time warping there over and over again - and there's great songs too.
Key tracks: "Eple", "Sparks", "Poor Leno"
A lushly produced debut album from an European duo circa the turn of the millennium, with one foot firmly in electronic music and the other taking steps towards different horizons, spearheading a trend that was more focused towards the lounges and living rooms than the dancefloors, and who would soundtrack countless "chill mix" compilations. Quick - am I talking about Moon Safari by Air, or Melody A.M. by Röyksopp?
While the two albums are kindred spirits, the big difference between them is where they’re placed in time. Moon Safari, despite its obvious retro affectations, sounds timeless and you can’t nail down its sound to a particular decade as it takes ideas from across decades. Melody A.M. meanwhile is the spirit of the millennium, inextricably linked to the rise of the chill electronic beats that were the hottest thing around, and the Nordic cool often accompanying them as they moved across Europe in particular. If you were around at the time, it’s the kind of record that will always take you back to that period. This was the sound that was playing everywhere around, literally in the case “Eple” which featured in seemingly every single advert break and public space. As a result, all the songs on Melody A.M. act like little time capsules in their own separate ways. “Sparks” is a runaway Moby song from his own millennial peak years, Erlend Øye’s vocals on “Poor Leno” and “Remind Me” echo the brief spotlight that Kings of Convenience had during the same time period, “Röyksopp’s Night Out” is a 1-to-1 readthrough of the club-friendly production fashion of the time, et cetera.
Melody A.M. wouldn't hold up as well as it does if it didn't sound so incredibly fresh though, which is an unbelievable thing for an album that's seemingly so tied to its year of origin. It's the ideas behind the songs that are completely timeless however, and there's nothing better to demonstrate this than the aforementioned “Eple” itself - Röyksopp’s signature song anywhere that isn’t the UK or the US. It’s a song that without fail will always take me back to my school years in the small town I lived in, but listening to it decades later as a grown man in a big city, it hasn’t aged a day: the sound is still fresh like a sharp apple, the synth blip melody is immortal in its instant infectiousness, and its lighter-than-air groove never goes out of fashion. It’s a song that has not just survived its omnipresence of the period, but which sounds like it could take over the world any day now again - and it always brings a genuine smile on my miserable face and warmth in my Northern heart in just how effortlessly gliding it is. It's a little masterpiece that doesn't roll over like a revolution, but plays in perfect harmony no matter the season or the year.
You can more or less lump the rest of the songs in a similar category: great tunes that sound as current now as they have ever been. "Poor Leno" and "Remind Me" are among the most finely arranged synthpop cuts of the 00s, filled with ache and longing over an impeccably cool production job loaded with charming instrumental details; I love the guitar on "Poor Leno" in particular, flicking from chicken-scratch disco to an ethereally floating melody. Øye's subdued vocals too fit so perfectly to the smooth synth backdrop that it's here where he's in his natural element, rather than with acoustic ballads, and the more laidback album version compared to the potentially more familiar single remix demonstrates it the best. "Sparks" is gorgeous and wistful, music for watching the rain cover everything outside the window when you're stuck inside. "So Easy" is amusing as an opener for their first album because it feels like the song that Röyksopp took as their signature sound; it's the song they've tried to recreate the most throughout their career and one of the few songs here that look forward to the rest of the duo's discography, when they'd abandon the more lounge-like aspects of this record. But they never bettered the formula from the ghost-like choirs and steadily swaggering bass of "So Easy".
In fact, the only one I’m not too fond of is “Röyksopp’s Night Out” which is the odd one out in several ways. It seems to be intended to be somewhat of a peak or a waterline for the record - the extended jam that crescendos the steady climb of energy coming towards it and leads into the more laidback last set of songs. But it’s the one song that’s most clearly gone past its use-by date with its reliance on very of-its-time beats and sounds and it stands out in that respect, which I wouldn’t mind so much if the song itself did anything noteworthy during its seven and half minutes. It’s not even the fact that it’s instrumental and so far all the songs I’ve praised bar “Eple” incorporate vocals to varying degrees, because the other instrumental cuts like the blissful “In Space” (one of the most gracefully lovely songs on the record), or the closing duo of the extremely Air-like lounge cut “She’s So” and the ambient closer “40 Years Back/Come” are still strong.
The overall good news therefore is that that even if you can't relate to the very specific memories of some random internet old fart who reviews music, Melody A.M. is still a great record. I'd hesitate to call it essential, even if it somewhat feels like it - it would certainly well deserve a slot in a Nordic-specific edition of the 1,001 Albums You Must Hear book - but if anything, it's perhaps slightly overlooked, certainly further away from its home. It belongs in the hallowed set of records that manage to sound both effortless and relaxing, as well as directly engaging and energetic; one for both ethereal headphone moments and to fire up a room party. It's an album I perhaps struggle to write in any kind of 'objective' sense because how closely it reminds me of where I was when I first became aware of it - but then, no other albums bearing this sound have survived this long. Of all the records that bore this sound in the early 00s, I can't remember any other one as clearly as this, which leaves Melody A.M. a practical example of survival of the fittest - especially once Röyksopp themselves moved on pretty swiftly to different places once they had their doors opened, never repeating this trick again. And I appreciate and acknowledge that I've banged on about the album's place in time to an uncomfortable and practically repetetive degree, but it's literally the primary aspect that hits me the most when I listen to Melody A.M. - and not in a nostalgic sense at all, but like a pure sensory memory, a real metaphysical sense of being there. Music can transport you to different places and while there are so many albums I connect more to on a personal level, Melody A.M. is one of the most vivid time machines I can think of.
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