From MotD reader and first-time contributor Max Willard comes the track “Royksopp Forever” (2009) by the Norwegian electronica duo Royksopp.
The duo’s album The Invitable End (2014) was widely considered to be the duo’s swan song; quite a few years of radio silence followed. In a 2022 Billboard interview, the duo describe their return: “The current scene is, luckily, a lot of things. That hasn’t changed for us. Some people look at the scene as music that crosses over, because electronic dance music became pop at some stage in the last 10 years … On the flip side, because it’s so saturated with music, there is a lot of crap as well. I have to be blunt and state the obvious. But as far as electronic music goes, for example, the genre of traditional rock was proclaimed “dead.” Those kinds of statements are so redundant. It’s just not as prominent, but it’s obviously still there. It’s just shifted a bit. Electronic music is now mainstream pop music. It’s just a little shift, but nothing really dies. It just becomes a bit more specialized and disappears and reappears. I like those shifting trends.”
Max’s take: “I think this modulation merits consideration because the entire song builds to the moment of key inflection.” After starting in D minor, the track transitions at 3:10 to a behemoth E major/A minor vamp, repeating onward to the end as it fades and shapeshifts.
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