RÖYKSOPP - Late Night Tales

One of the most consistent cross-genre artist-curated mix series keeps its batting average mighty high with this installment from Norway's Röyksopp; we'd especially recommend this bespoke blend of mainly '70s/'80s soft rock, electronic ambience and subtly strange slow jams to anyone who picked up earlier volumes by Air and Lindstrøm, as well as Groove Armada's recent Music For Pleasure entry.

"Röyksopp's selections generally live somewhere in a late-1970s/early-'80s setting. The most compelling include Tuxedomoon's 'In a Manner of Speaking,' a showcase for part-time member Winston Tong's portrayal of romantic miscommunication over a stark arrangement of nervous guitar and distant swirls; Vangelis' "Blade Runner Blues," a pure synthesizer realization of the late-night and disconnected melancholy of Blade Runner that steers clear of the pounding doom of its end theme, and F. R. David's remarkable synth ballad 'Music,' which sounds like a Eurovision winner with all heart and inspiraiton and no irony, even 30 years after it was originally written.

There are also choices that merrily trash received ideas of coolness, like 'Stranger on the Shore,' Acker Bilk’s clarinet-lined Easy Listening smash from the early 60s, which is a kind of outlier from the midcentury that nails both big-band jazz and romantic film music. Ready to be reclaimed by the cassette/chillwave generation, Andreas Vollenweider's 1981 track 'Hands and Clouds' is a brief bit of swirling delicacy that sounds like a lost track from the high point of West Coast radio stations like The Wave. Meanwhile, the neo-classical impulses of acts like Johann Johannsson, whose composition of strings and deep electronic bass plus voice of “Odi Et Amo” features here, showcase a further connection at work." - Pitchfork