Röyksopp
Do It Again
Release Date: May 26, 2014
Genre(s): Pop, Electronic, Downtempo, Dance-Pop, Club/Dance, Alternative Dance, Downbeat, Ambient Breakbeat
Record label: Cherrytree Records / Interscope
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Album Review: Do It Again by Röyksopp
Very Good, Based on 18 Critics
Based on rating 5/5
The term ‘mini album’ does sound a bit pretentious. But then, ‘Do It Again’ comes from Röyksopp and Robyn, Scandi pop pioneers who each have a history of making landscape-changing music.However you classify ‘Do It Again’, listening to it feels like landing in a desert, walking 1000 miles and suddenly arriving at a festival organised by robots addicted to Game of Thrones. And, if that sounds too epic, well tough; because album-opener ‘Monument’ is a nine-minute-long statement piece, literally asking you to “make a space” for what’s about to come.
Based on rating 9/10
Röyksopp and Robyn's previous team-up resulted in the incredible "The Girl and the Robot," so it was kind of a given that their collaborative EP/mini-album Do It Again would be excellent. The surprise, however, is the songs themselves. The EP is bookended by dual ten-minute epics: opener "Monument" is a grooving meditation in which Robyn sings "this will be my monument, this will be a beacon when I'm gone" as snippets of her arpeggiating voice lead to the drum fills and pensive saxophone that end the song; closer "Inside The Idle Hour Club" blossoms slowly into a swirling, Steve Reich-ian piece that, although it eschews the typical pop structures of Röyksopp and Robyn's music, is pretty enough that it should still please listeners.
Based on rating 8.5/10
With a prolific summer itinerary that includes a coveted headline slot at Latitude, Robyn and Röyksopp are benevolently providing a caveat. Smooshing their brains together, the combined musical power of three of Scandinavia’s biggest and brightest talents is going to be 101% mesmerising, right? It’s gotta be like when the Nazis open the Ark Of The Covenant, surely? After all, their previous collisions have given us über-ditties such as “None Of Dem” and “The Girl And The Robot”. Mmhmm.
Based on rating 8/10
Ever since "The Girl and the Robot," it's been clear that Röyksopp and Robyn bring out the best in each other in a way that stands apart from each act's other collaborations: Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge help ground her flights of fancy, while she enlivens their sophistication. Released shortly before their mid-2014 joint tour, Do It Again makes the most of their partnership. The trio bookends the EP with two of the most introspective tracks to ever grace a Robyn-affiliated project.
Based on rating 4/5
This is not a new pairing: the idiosyncratic Swedish pop star and the Norwegian electronic duo have graced one another's records in the past. What's unexpected about this mini-album is how subdued Robyn, a larger-than-life presence, sounds on (most of) it. On the opening and closing tracks – both pushing 10 minutes, the latter wordless – she steps back to give the production room space to breathe.
Based on rating 4/5
The Girl And The Robot from Norwegian electro duo Röyksopp's Junior album and None Of Dem from Swedish pop star Robyn's Body Talk Pt. 1 were both excellent collaborations, the former an outstanding synth-pop gem that belongs with Dancing On My Own and Call Your Girlfriend on the short list of all-time great Robyn songs that make women feel understood. So this debut joint EP from the Scandinavian power dance team is giddily anticipated.
Based on rating B+
Robyn has always been the pop star who makes the most painful experiences in life feel euphoric, even glorious. “Call Your Girlfriend” and “Dancing on My Own” both resonated with audiences as songs driven by a fierce individualism — an independence that’s born out of romantic failures. Similarly, on her joint mini-album with the glitchy Scandinavian duo Röyksopp, it’s when she’s relating her experiences with deep-seated pain and the strength to overcome it that the songs really hit.
Based on rating 7.7/10
The first studio snippet from Robyn and Röyksopp's collaborative mini-album Do It Again, shared stealthily in a trailer video for their joint tour, gave off an unfamiliar jolt of sex and circuitry. The Swedish pop upsetter and a Kraftwerk-worthy robotic voice, something like a filthy-minded Speak & Spell, plainly stated that they wanted each other. Surrounded by hard-driven electronic beats and billowing synths, you could almost imagine them in some fantastical dance club, about to slip away into the shadows.
Based on rating 3.5/5
Best friends Röyksopp and Robyn, from Norway and Sweden respectively, are heading out on tour this summer performing a show that will involve them playing separately and together. This mini album adds five tracks to previous collaborations, like ‘The Girl And The Robot’ from Röyksopp’s 2009 ‘Junior’ album, and it begins with a stunner – ‘Monument’, a winding and mystical 10-minute epic containing startlingly self-confident lyrics: “This will be my monument / This will be a beacon when I’m gone. ” Elsewhere, there’s slashing techno (‘Say It’), a big electro-pop moment (‘Do It Again’), a classic Robyn teen-state-of-mind ballad (‘Every Little Thing’) and a rather piddling, wordless piece appropriately titled ‘Inside The Idle Hour Club’.
Based on rating 7/10
Robyn is quite the enigma, isn’t she? When she is here, she’s absolutely everywhere; the apparently inexhaustible supply of radio-ready singles from Robyn, for instance, or the three-part roll-out of Body Talk. She has a habit, though, of disappearing without warning; we’ve not heard much from her these past four years. But this quickfire five-track effort is an appealing move, a comfortable way to ease herself back into a pop scene that’s continued to shift shape in her absence, yet the fact that it’s a joint effort with Röyksopp means that she’s continuing to push herself into unchartered territory.
Based on rating 3.5
When news broke that, in addition to a tour this summer, Röyksopp and Robyn were working on new material together, it was enough to make a lot of people go weak at the knees. The Girl And The Robot was one of the standouts from Röyksopp’s 2009 album Junior, and None Of Dem was one of several crackers from Robyn’s trio of Body Talk releases. What could possibly go wrong when some of the best players of Nordic electropop team up? With new mini-album Do It Again, they’ve confirmed how much of a dynamite pairing they can be.
Based on rating 6/10
The pairing of Röyksopp and Robyn first happened with Röyksopp's 2009 album, Junior and "The Girl and the Robot." The following year, Röyksopp featured on Robyn's, "None of Dem," from her Body Talk trilogy. Now they come together for Do It Again, a five-song mini-album..
Based on rating 6/10
Well, that was anticlimactic. There was so much to anticipate here and so little that lingered on in the mind long after the final track had come to an unremarkable close. In the past, the inventive collaborations between Robyn and Röyksopp were so effortlessly impressive, that they easily surpassed the creative output of many of their Nordic, electro-pop peers.
Based on rating 3/5
Swedish pop queen Robyn's partnership with the Norwegian duo Röyksopp on this five-song EP lets her relax her typically skintight songwriting into contemplative jams that fade out as slowly as a sunset. "Monument," the best track, finds her somberly reflecting from an imagined future; "Do It Again" pairs propulsive beats with Robyn's melancholy vocal hooks, but it doesn't feel as emotionally authentic as, say, her 2011 club hit "Call Your Girlfriend." Even without the ecstatic melodrama of Robyn's best work or the momentum of Röyksopp albums like 2009's Junior, this is a worthwhile peek into three great electro-pop minds. .
Based on rating 5/10
Head here to submit your own review of this album. Peanut butter and jam. Lennon and McCartney. Curry and beer. Robyn and Röyksopp. Solange and slapping people in lifts. Some things just work together.. In this case, Robyn, the ever-present predecessor to the enduring alt-pop Scandi-philia that we ….
Based on rating 2.5/5
Over the years, Röyksopp has proven themselves to be skilled collaborators, producing some of their best music when another performer has stepped in to provide the human element often missing in their glossy, motorized dance-pop. It seems logical, then, that the duo would eventually extend their collaborations beyond mere one-offs and into something more ambitious. And with whom better than Scandinavian diva Robyn, whose glitchy, synthy brand of R&B suggests a natural affinity with Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland's arctic compositions? But while the trio established a quick rapport on their initial tracks together a few years back, the simpatico on their new joint mini-album, Do It Again, seems almost too obvious: Röyksopp and Robyn share so much sonic DNA that their team-up is almost self-defeating, blurring the distinction between the two to the point where their respective quirks are essentially scratched in favor of a cohesive but far too clinical production.
Opinion: Fantastic
opinion byPETER TABAKIS < @ptabakis > Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland first discovered their Swedish-fembot Martha Wash while recording their third album. The Norwegian duo, better known to us as Röyksopp, invited Robyn Carlsson to sing on “The Girl and the Robot,” a towering cut from 2009’s Junior. She instantly proved an ideal partner, a front-woman to further broaden their sonic and expressive reach.
Opinion: Excellent
It’s no coincidence that the first song on “Do It Again,” the new collaborative album from Robyn and Röyksopp, sounds like the intro music for when an artist emerges from the shadows to take center stage. Swedish pop star Robyn and Röyksopp, the Norwegian electro-pop duo of Svein Berge and Torbjorn Brundtland, are going on the road together this summer, and this five-song EP, which sprawls to 35 minutes, arrives just in time for the merch table. “Monument,” that opening salvo, is nearly 10 minutes of undulating rhythms that creep and crawl to create a trance-like beauty, with a faint wash of horns midway in.
'Do It Again'
is available now