Every once in a while we get a chance to experience an incredible dance event at the Hollywood Bowl. Some years back, Thievery Corporation practically burned the place down with world-infused downtempo jams. More recently, The Chemical Brothers delivered their unparalleled knack for full-bodied 4-to-the-floor mania. This week, we get the extra special treat of not only electro titans Royksopp, but also dance pop megastar Robyn. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough both Royksopp and Robyn are performing together, playing collaborative songs from their recently released Do It Again EP. It’s a night filled with immensely talented Swedes and Norwegians and there would be no better venue to bring a historic show like this to the fold than the Hollywood Bowl.
First up tonight with a super short opening set was Zhala. Zhala–a signee of Robyn’s Konichiwa records–is an energetic flavor of solo electro-pop. For this short opening set, she performed completely alone, without any actual players. All of her music was solely triggered while she happily bopped along and sang. To her credit, as a set based on nothing more than a backing track could be extremely boring, but purely because of her own exuberance, it was far from it. Zhala at the least sang every part with intense energy.
Royksopp came next in the first part of the uninterrupted remainder of the night’s show. Roughly divided into forty-minute segments, Royksopp came first, then Robyn with some accompaniment and finally Royksopp and Robyn together. Royksopp live was a five-piece ensemble, the duo of Svein Berge and Torbjorn Brundtland joined by Ole Skauge, Kato Adland and occasionally Susanne Sundfor on vocals. The group deftly concocted enveloping swirls taking the standard sequencing of dance and making each successive meter a distinct and intriguing phrasing. “Happy Up Here” and “Remind Me” started things off right, taking a softer edge to electroclash and a more wide-awake form of downtempo respectively. Sundfor joined them for “What Else Is There?” and “This Must Be It” filling the spot played by The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson on 2005’s The Understanding and 2009’s Junior. Both tracks again featured the band’s expert knack for originality in instrumentation. There were no generic synth patches used here. This was all their work in programming and performance. “Running to the Sea” dialed up the energy significantly and “Poor Leno” was the soothing decrescendo heralding the transition to Robyn’s set.
While the music reverberated on endless loop, Robyn took the stage in an outfit fitting her notorious stylish nature. More of a readymade of pieces of other outfits—some of it a hoodie, some of it a tank top and some of it knee-high boots—Robyn began the set with her face under hood. She opened with “Be Mine” as the crowd on hand cheered ecstatically not anticipating a seamless segue. At first, she was joined only by two keyboardists, but as the set progressed more of her players and Royksopp’s live band joined her on stage. “Set Me Free” found her using her emotional intonation and sincere delivery to win over the audience. “Indestructible” from 2010’s Body Talk was the first track to trigger an explosive reaction from the crowd. The song itself spoke to romantic courage, Robyn singing, “I’m going to love you like I’ve never been hurt before.”
While “Indestructible” was lively enough, “Main Thing” played up the dance-aerobics vibe even further itself a bombastic dance number. Interesting to note, “Main Thing” was one of the few songs Robyn played tonight from the early pre-self-titled album portion of her pop career. Her final three songs before Royksopp returned played both to her hits and her strengths. Dance pop soliloquy “Call Your Girlfriend” doubles as confessional and joyous dance routine. “Dancing On My Own” through some simple theatrics (Robyn pretended to be making out with someone, her back to the crowd and arms wrapped around herself) brought the crowd to their highest point of participation, singing the song’s first chorus in its entirety without nary a prompting from the artist. Lastly, “With Every Heartbeat” had her cooing plaintively about a failed romance, pushing out a passionate performance rather than extreme vocal histrionics.
As the final notes of “With Every Heartbeat” cycled up into cacophony, all of the performers took the stage again for the finale, a collaborative set featuring predominantly songs from the just-released Do It Again mini album. A raised platform placed center stage. Robyn took her place on it (and following a costume change where she looked like a cyber warrior from the future) and the two members of Royksopp Svein Berge and Torbjorn Brundtland joined her at a sampler pad flanking her on each side. Both bedecked in a silver costume that obscured their faces. They started with lead single “SayIt,” a pounding club banger that featured Robyn chanting along with a speak-and-spell in staccato fashion “I / Want / You.” “Every Little Thing” brimmed over with warm synth lines and sequencing as Robyn chirped, “I’ve been waiting here forever.” Berge donned what can only be described as Darth Vader-esque mask and the collective performed “The Girl and The Robot” from Royksopp’s 2009 album Junior, a more direct and upbeat number focused on ever-mounting energy. Their most impressive song from their new work released thus far, “Monument” followed and was a soothing backdrop set over an elongated structure; a fitting backdrop for Robyn’s nuanced delivery. “Do It Again” ended the set proper, leaning on Robyn’s innate ability to render convincing, upbeat dance music. With time enough for just one encore, they dusted of their collaboration from Robyn’s famed Body Talk album, “None of Dem,” opting for a mid-tempo release than a grand conclusion.
Robyn and Royksopp fit together amazingly well. Robyn’s talent and performance abilities beg for a sonic backdrop that brims over with creativity and credibility, not so much the fake flourishes that fill so much of our current pop music drivel. She has that partner in Royksopp. Similarly, Robyn is the mouthpiece that their music yearns for; a linchpin that connects the ebb and tide of their music, raising it above mere lush arrangements. Sad only, in that right now beyond their occasional work together years earlier, there is really only five songs of focused work as a unit that we’ve heard thus far. Hopefully, this is merely the beginning and this is a start of a dedicated series of work between them.
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