Aside from being pretty good at this whole electropop thing they’ve got going, Royksopp spark a key query with their most recent album. Is there a type of music in this world Lykke Li’s voice can not compliment? Drake songs, this and vampire soundtracks, homegirl is a chameleon. Anywho, the Norwegian duo will be coming over to the states (or at least, the coasts) to play for the first time in four years. And at least one famous meme-inspiring rapper is a known fan. Maybe you’ll see him at one of these dates.

11.18 Los Angeles, CA @ Club Nokia
11.19 San Francisco, CA @ Regency
11.23 New York, NY @ Webster Hall
11.24 New York, NY @ Webster Hall

Twi-hards, rejoice: the soundtrack for the latest film in the Twilight series, New Moon, will be released this Friday, as “overwhelming and unprecedented demand” prompted the release date to be pushed up by four days. The album will be hitting stores more than a month before the film is released on November 20, so the Twilight faithful can comfort themselves with the musical musings of Death Cab for Cutie, Thom Yorke, Muse, the Killers, OK Go, Grizzly Bear, Lykke Li, Bon Iver, St. Vincent, Sea Wolf, and the Editors, among others, until their cinematic dreams become reality.

MTV has the full scoop on the most recent Twilight developments, of course, and is featuring an interview with OK Go and Lykke Li about their involvement with the soundtrack; check them out here and here. Stream the video for Death Cab for Cutie’s contribution to the soundtrack, titled “Meet Me on the Equinox,” here.

If we had to guess how Mark Ronson, Pharrell and Justin Timberlake have all been using up their spare time for the last few months, home-fried Southern rock remixing wouldn’t have been it.
But even before an official Kings of Leon album was even in the mix, Timberlake and Pharrell were allegedly reworking the Tennessee-based band of brothers’ tunes. And while it’s often been more of a question as to what Pharrell’s not into than what he is, it’s still sort of fun to imagine him listening to say the seven-plus minute epic that is “Knocked Up” and decide where it could use more space drums. Drummer Nathan Followill told Billboard Ronson, Kenna, Lykke Li and Linkin Park will also contribute tracks to the album. The band also just shot footage for an upcoming live DVD in London. Neither of these projects have a slated release date.

Domestic life with artificial intelligence and a white bed dominate the screen for Röyksopp’s new single “The Girl & The Robot,” which also stars Swedish singer Robyn.

The Norwegian duo employs more of a club anthem mixed with slight techno tendencies for the song, which will be released in stores next month. It starts out with a haunting and hooking electro powerhouse with Robyn’s sweet-like vocals stating “I go mental every time you leave for work” and asking when her beloved he-bot will be home.

The song is the second single taken from Röyksopp’s new album Junior, which also features guests Lykke Li and Karin Dreijer Andersson (The Knife/Fever Ray). The video marks the first time band members Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge appear in their own video, of who we had great pleasure trying to spot.

Robyn, who borrows a bit from the La Roux handbook to hair styles and lounges around in a futuristic cocktail dress, looks pensive for much of the video. What happens when you fall in love with your pre-ordered robot man? What happens when he does landscaping outside? What happens when a pregnancy test is involved? Watch below and see if these Europeans are really predicting the future.

Röyksopp Featuring Robyn – “The Girl & The Robot”

To what degree is it absurdly patronizing that I didn’t take Laura Marling seriously because she’s a 19-year-old British female-folk/pop singer? Let’s call a spade a spade here: if you’re a young artist, you’re afforded little respect. If you’re a young woman, you’re afforded even less. These are entrenched stigmas in critical culture. It doesn’t help Marling’s cause that her songs are anchored on tales of failed or unrequited love. To sum it up: good-looking blonde teenager sings songs about her ex-boyfriend. Play coy all you want, but we both know transcending that persona on a critical level is pretty fucking tough. But we’re not talking about the Jonas Brother or Miley Cyrus here — we’re talking about Marling, who exudes a unique maturity in interviews; she is comfortable in the spotlight and admirably reticent. She doesn’t play to the camera; she plays to herself. She dismisses compliments about her maturity saying such self-analysis is unnecessary. And truthfully, she has little to nothing to do with her youthful contemporaries, but more with accomplished artists like Leslie Feist or Lykke Li.

So Marling wins points on personality, but points on songwriting? Definitely a few, but there’s plenty of work to do. She sings acceptable, innocuous folk songs. Lead single “Ghost” is Marling at her best with vulnerability on full display. But all the songs showcase this emotion to some degree, and they all basically sound the same: finger-picking guitar, accompanying piano or lead guitar, verse-chorus structure, gentle vocals. It’s tough to pretend like these songs differentiate from one another. Not to say they aren’t enjoyable, none are unbearable and none irritating — a listening experience not dissimilar to Coldplay — but ultimately, the listening experience is akin to a 38-minute coffee-shop performance. Alas, I Cannot Swim’s 12-tracks trot by without a change in momentum or character.

Marling’s touted maturity comes from her poetic maneuvering. She is clever and self-deprecating, but not self-pitying. Though unfamiliar hearing a 19-year-old dish existential advice, “don’t cry kid/ you’ve got so much more to live for,” she redeems herself often. It’s hard not to be charmed in the title track (hidden at the end of the disc) when she quips, “there is a boy across the river/ but alas, I cannot swim.” Her vivid imagery of ex-boyfriends is so accomplished that I can hardly believe they were written by someone so young: “At one in the morning the day has not ended/ by two, he is scared that sleep is no friend/ by four, he will drink but cannot feel it.” The best tracks bookend the album with “Ghost” opening and “Your Only Doll” finishing – both admirably earnest moments.

While the Avril Lavigne’s of the world claim to circumvent the “Label-Creates-the-Star” paradigm by maintaining personal autonomy, they reek of artificiality more than the Miley’s. But there is a real feeling Marling has nothing to do with them; she’s a talented bedroom musician being taken along for the corporate ride. Alas, I Cannot Swim is a satisfactory beginning; with character in check, and a knack for lyrics that feel ten times her age, Marling’s young career will hopefully evolve into something musically-original and artistically-engaging.

Astralwerks

Featuring the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, My Bloody Valentine, Devendra Banhart, The Cure, Lykke Li, Antony and the Johnsons and Peter Bjorn and John.


[Yeah Yeah Yeahs]

[My Bloody Valentine]

[Devendra Banhart]

[The Cure]

[Lykke Li]

[Antony And The Johnsons]

[Peter Bjorn And John]

Love Is All has recorded a bunch of their favorite Swedish classics — including a cover of Lykke Li’s mom’s band, Tant Strul’s “Pappas Tant” — and will be giving away the tracks to fans for free at their upcoming shows and online.

According to the band’s MySpace blog, they recorded the covers a while back, when they had some time to kill. “Each member would pick a song with no other member getting a say in the matter,” said Josephine on the band’s blog. “We recorded them all in a hurry at our space just to avoid things getting too complicated.”

Love Is All hand-made 200 CDRs, which include screen-printed covers and a small fanzine. Among the Swedish musicians covered are, Bob Hund, Di Leva and Magnus Uggla. The band will be bringing the covers album along with them to their upcoming shows in Europe, but don’t worry, even if you can’t get one of the 200 albums the band made, you can still go on the band’s MySpace and stream the tracks. 

Apparently the band is also trying to decide if they should do an American classics cover album as well, and if so, we have some suggestions.

Lykke Li as you’ve never seen her before; in a stripped down black and white video for her haunting lullaby “Tonight”. Directed by Christian Haag, and shot in one live take in Stockholm.

Lykke Li – “Tonight”
Directed by Christian Haag