Disco Pogo very kindly asked me to contribute to their latest issue. They gave me a shot at their “First Listen” feature. 500 words on a record that you’ve never heard before. “Sounds easy enough”, I thought. I immediately barked out, “How about Boards Of Canada’s Music Has The Right To Children too?”, since I’d just picked up the reissue. This scored me several minus points, ’cos the marvellous Midfield General, Damien Harris, formerly head honcho at Skint, and now at Viscous Charm, had covered BoC in Issue 1. I obviously hadn’t been paying attention. I then suggested the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. Again, I’d bought a reissue (up until then all I had was Shake Yer Rump, on a cassette, taped from a John Peel radio show). Turns out that the remit is a tad tighter than I initially figured. The album needs to be by someone famous, but someone famous that you’ve no real background knowledge of. We then began the process of me firing off the names of old stuff that I’d only retrospectively been turned on to. Bouncing possibles back and forth. Their Avalanches, Basement Jaxx, MIA, and The Prodigy, versus my Steve Reich, Gigi Masin, and William Onyeabor. We finally settled on Röyksopp’s Melody A.M., something that the DP crew were freaked to find that I wasn’t familiar with, since in certain circles it’s considered “Balearic”. To read the resulting piece you’ll have to invest in a copy of that latest issue, but I’ll tell you that I can pretty much always think of something nice to say. 

Prior to topping charts as Röyksopp, Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland, were part of the now legendary underground dance music scene based in Tromsø, in Norway’s isolated north. Writing the essay got me interested in hearing the music that they made back then. Before the worldwide success. One pre-Röyksopp project was Alanïa. The third member of the group was Rune Lindbæk, arguably Norway’s most White Isle-influenced DJ / producer. Rune also gets a credit on Melody A.M., but in the wake of that album’s critical and commercial acclaim the trio suffered a serious falling out. There are some unfortunate courtroom stories knocking about. Trying to put that aside, Alanïa’s 1996 album Instinctive Travels is an interesting listen. It documents three talented friends experimenting with a variety of styles, and, in hindsight, foreshadows the different directions its co-creators subsequently took.  

The album opens with a crack of thunder and the atmospheric, ambient, A’, which serves to set the scene, since like everything else on offer, it’s soaked in dramatic, synthetic strings. Flower Garden fuses an acoustic guitar loop to a go-go beat. The music, very much sample-based, and unlike Röyksopp, where the source material is buffed, muted, and blurred, the sharp edges of these snippets, and the machines, are still on display. Storm is drum & bass, taking its “intelligent” template from LTJ Bukem, and Bukem proteges, PFM. Weaving woodwinds and ethereal exclamations around The Winstons’ Amen break. Lithên takes a similar sound palette, but instead fashions some folky kosmische. Borrowing prose from The San Sebastian Strings / Rod McKuen – “I put a seashell to my ear…” – and adding a zither’s zing. Testament is jazzy trip hop, whose vocals veer between Hindu mantra and Rasta poetry. Jah Jah Is Coming develops the dub angle further, and begins with Barrington Levy’s unmistakeable tones. Earthquake mixes tribal shouts and prayer-like chants with Sugarhill / Spoonie Gee. L’église features a cool, blue, Miles Davis / Sketches Of Spain horn, while the closing, moody, Mostly, could definitely be a Cafe del Mar sunset moment. Nothing has the hook, and therefore the crossover / chart appeal, of say, Röyksopp’s So Easy, and the album, in the main, is far, far less pop, and more club and chillout room gear. Conception, though, with its bongos, conga, Spanish guitar, and big, bold piano chords, is the “Balearic” standout, and points to the musical path that Rune would follow. Beautiful is an analogue / digital bubblebath of easy-listening, dropped into dubwise, softly swirling romantic themes surrounded by warm, womb-like subs. Sexy, and mellow, it signposts where, sonically, Svein and Torbjørn would go. 

My First Listen piece, on Röyksopp’s Melody A.M. is just the tiniest taste of the marvellous music journalism that can be found in Disco Pogo Issue 4. Thanks to Jim, John, and Paul, for asking me to be involved.