Röyksopp: Profound Mysteries – Album – 2022

Review for Röyksopp: Profound Mysteries – Album – 2022:

Title: Profound Mysteries
Artist: Röyksopp
Country of Origin: Norway
Format: Album
Release Date: 29.04.2022
Label: Dog Triumph / Embassy One, Berlin
Genre: Electronica

Soundquality:

At qobuz (EU) and HD Tracks (USA) available in
24-Bit 44.1 kHz – Hi-Res – Stereo

For the German translation of
this review >>> click here <<<

Prelude

2014 – A world is collapsing

It was late 2014. Norwegians Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland, better known as Röyksopp, announced that they will not release any more longplayers after their sensational album THE INEVITABLE END. This was like an earthquake (probably not only for me), an event in the music scene that for me was comparable to the breakup of the Beatles in 1970, an event that I was still able to experience “live”. Or the death of David Bowie in 2016.

Although Berge and Brundtland announced that they still wanted to continue producing music. But with the LOST TAPES Series released in the following time, which consisted mainly of Singe releases, I couldn’t really get used to it anymore. I’m sure you’re wondering why I attach such importance to the premature career brake.

Well, I think you should know that I had worked in various record stores and also in the music industry since from 1979 until about 1998. During this time, until the turn of the millennium, I drifted rather aimlessly through an ocean of endless music of various styles, but without wanting to form preferences for a specific genre or even a particular artist. However, I always had some preference for electronic music by Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze, for example. However, this was at no time a sound that was to stay longer at my side.

The Early Years

This began to change around 2001, when Röyksopp’s first studio album, entitled MELODY A.M., was released, a longplayer that was hotly acclaimed by the international music journalism. The sound Berge and Brundtland offered us on this album was a rather successful mixture of Goldfrapp cereals that have been fluffily loosely matched with a very best AIR milkshake – in other words: a real surprise egg with finest downtempo sounds from Scandinavian lands.

Already with this debut album, the duo’s brand essence could be guessed: the combination of slightly squeaky Bullerbü synths alternated with creaking backbeats and tracks with dreamy slightly melancholic vocal lines voice. Even here, with the addition of a whole series of guest musicians such as Those Norwegians, Drum Island and Kings of Convenience a specific characteristic was showing up, which was to become the defining feature of Röksopp’s sound.

Then in 2005 the album THE UNDERSTANDING came along, a release that was to change my listening habits permanently. First there was the ginormous good track WHAT ELSE IS THERE with the beguiling vocals of Karin Dreijer from Sweden, which sends a pleasant shiver up and down the spine with a strong shot of melancholy, an immense density and a lot of emotionality. There is also a fascinating video that you should definitely have a look at.

The album is packed with fascinating tracks that will forever burn themselves into your auditory canal, sometimes melancholic foggy, sometimes with the familiar Bullerbü cheerfulness, sometimes with driving house sounds and almost filling any dance floor.

In 2009 and 2010, JUNIOR and SENIOR appeared, which can be seen as a creative unit. Two exceedingly good albums, which nevertheless did not want to immortalize themselves in my personal music diary. JUNIOR scores with the vocals of Robyn, Karin Dreijer, the brilliant Lykke Li and Anneli Drecker, the whole album is very dancefloor-housy tuned and also offers a lot of fascinating electro-pop. SENIOR, on the other hand, comes across as very dark and melancholic, with hooky, intricately driving arrangements and multidimensional electronic soundscapes.

The Album THE INEVITABLE END

On November 16, 2014, Röyksopp finally hit the big time and released THE INEVITALBE END, an album of superlatives. The album is musically and thematically incredibly cohesive, captivates with grandiose arrangements and is a milestone of contemporary electronic pop music. It doesn’t get any better than this. The track RUNNING TO THE SEA with the vocals of Susanne Sundfør is of intoxicating beauty.

I HAD THIS THING is in no way inferior, RONG is suitable with it’s always repeating lyrics (What the f..k is wrong with you?) as an ideal present for every inappropriate occasion.

Basically, there is not a single track on this album that wouldn’t stand sky-high above all the other stuff of the recent electronic scene. With this incredibly impressive album, Röyksopp have forever settled high above the walls of Asgat like a landmark for the ages. Every formation, every producer of modern electronic pop music will use this album as a guide through the endless electro jungle – and also every fan of this musical genre, like me.

When Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland then announced at the end of 2014 that no further albums would follow, this was a mega gau, this could not be true, this simply could not happen, a life without the sounds of Röyksopp, which stand like no one else for the immensely high creativity of Scandinavian/Nordic acts in the field of modern electronic music.

Berge and Brundtland may have paved the way for the huge success of many acts from the north, such as GusGusand VöK from Iceland, Kiasmos (Ólafur Arnaldsand Janus Rasmussen) from Iceland and the Faroe Islands. They are seamlessly joined by Lykke Lifrom Sweden, the extravagant Norwegian producer Aurorawith her extremely impressive live shows, the Norwegian DJ and producer duo KREAM, who can always score with extremely fascinating DJ sets in front of the fascinating natural scenery of Norway.

The keyboard wizard KEBU from Finland should not remain unmentioned; just as his Finnish fellow countryman YOTTO, who could draw attention in 2018 with the album “Hyperfall” and since then was standing with his label “Odd One Out” for electronic dancefloor sounds intelligently put into the musical picture. His videos in front of the natural scenery of Finland are also outstanding.

Review of the new album PROFOUND MYSTERIES

Röyksopp’s 2014 departure from the traditional album format to free themselves from its restrictions and cyclical limitations suited them quite well for a while. But in the second half of the 2010s, Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland probably lived out their musical whims and ideas a bit too excessively.

By providing the music for a somewhat strange Franz Kafka stage show and also for Rick Rubin’s Star Wars Headspace compilation, everthing became a bit too dull. Especially the spontaneous release of new singles, which culminated in the THE LOST TAPES sampler in 2021, didn’t really convince the fans So the surprising announcement of new music in an album format was to be taken with a grain of salt at first, although the expectations and the joy of the fans were of course huge.

Like every Röyksopp project, Profound Mysteries should have a certain independence and yet be somehow “different” to distinguish themselves from the mainstream. So Berge and Brundtland decided to transform each of the ten tracks on the duo’s sixth album into an audiovisual experience as well.

The result is a series of audio-visual artifacts and music visualizations created by Australian designer Jonathan Zawada. This created an almost eerie musical canvas and stage for the tracks, perhaps darker and more haunting than anything the duo has released to date.

The only, but decisive disadvantage: when enjoyed in one piece (I provide you with the complete video below here) – unlike the acoustic release – certain symptoms of boredom cannot be concealed. In addition, the whole thing was not really new either, GusGus had managed this much more effectively in the context of the release of the album “Mobile Home” in 2021, for which the befriended Icelandic top video producer team Arni & Kinski took over the audiovisual design.

But the album in itself, however, is exceedingly fascinating. The opener “(Nothing But) Ashes…” is apocalyptic and otherworldly at the same time, setting another broadly sprawling dramatic undertone that continues into “The Ladder,” a 16:9 acoustic instrumental with a restrainedly slowed-down midtempo characteristic.

The addition of Alison Goldfrapp to take over the vocals in the track “IMPOSSIBLE” was really more than a stroke of luck. Alison fits perfectly into the duo’s musical concept of collaborating with other luminaries from their musical cosmos like Robyn and Susanne Sundfør.

Other new additions to the Röyksopp world include singer Beki Mari (“This Time, This Place…”), formerly a member of the French group Nouvelle Vague, plus British artist Pixx (“How the Flowers Grow”) and Norwegian Astrid S (“Breathe”).

The resumption of a long-established collaboration from the past is also convincing all along the line: Susanne Sundfør once again takes over the vocal part on the melancholically enchanting track “If You Want Me”. This outstanding piece of music highlights the continuation of this collaboration between the two parties in an extremely impressive way.

The Bottom Line:

PROFOUND MYSTERIES may be less experimentally extravagant than some of the previous albums, but it has every chance of triggering a new Röyksopp euphoria with its mystical Nordic atmosphere in order to captivate the listener again for a long time. However, the old Röyksopp rule applies here as well, namely that their albums want to open up to the listener only slowly bit by bit in the beginning, but then they are present in the life of a fan for an immensely long time.
Röyksopp are back – and everything is going to be alright again.

The album is in 24 bit / 44.1 kHz and sounds excellent across the frequency range, with excellently natural highs and an organic midrange. However, the massively deep basses are just reproduced absolutely cleanly in the 24 bit variant, MP3 and the 16 bit 44.1 kHz variant (Apple Music and Tidal) are anything but satisfying. The same applies to the detail resolution and the spatial representation.

Listen to it:

Mein Test-Equiment:

Studio 1 (High End):

• 2 x System Audio SA Mantra 50 (front)
• 1x System Audio SA Mantra 10 AV (center)
• 2x System Audio SA Legend 5 (Rear)
• 1 x System Audio Saxo 10 (Subwoofer)
• 4 x Onkyo SKH-410 (B) (Dolby Atmos)
• Auralic Altair (Audio Streaming Client mit max. 32 Bit / 384 kHz)
• NVIDIA Shield Pro mit Plex, Kodi (max 192 kHz für  Audio, Tidal (MQA Streaming Client)
• AppleTV 4K (Streaming Client) Dolby Atmos, HDR, Dolby Vision
• Amazon Cube 4K (Streaming Client) Dolby Atmos (restricted), HDR, Dolby Vision
• Panasonic DP-UB9004 (4K UHD Player) Dolby Atmos, HDR, Dolby Vision
• Oppo UDP-203 (4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Player) Dolby Atmos, HDR, Dolby Vision
• Yamaha CX-A5100 (Preamp) 4K, Dolby Atmos, Hi-res
• Yamaha MX -A5000 (Power Amp)
• Sony KD-55A1 (TV) 4K OLED, HDR, Dolby Vision

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