Music Not (Really) THINKING OF A MASTER PLAN Robyn and Royksopp’s new electro-pop mini-album is agenda-free and captivating By JASON LIPSHUTZ Photographed by BRINSON + BANKS From left: Royksopp’s Berge and Brundtland and Robyn photographed May 8 at Club De Periodistas in E Mexico City. EVERY TIME ROBYN AND PRODUCTION DUO ROYKSOPP the single as an “accidental pop song,” written live up to anything but my own expectations.” get together, they stumble onto something after an epic evening in the Norwegian city of The songs on Do It Again — the moody sprawl new, weird and great. Five days after traversing Bergen, with Robyn present this time. “We do of “Monument,” the soupy electro-punk of Mexico City while filming amusic video for their what we want, and as soon as it’s done, we just “Sayit,” the cozy textures of the 10-minute collaborative single “Do It Again,” Robyn is still do it again,” sings Robyn. instrumental “Inside the Idle Hour Club” — excited to see the resulting cellphone selfies. Her ornate pop stylings first collided with were written and produced collaboratively, with “Are you going to mail me the photos that I Royksopp’s shimmering electronica on the latter’s all three musicians “taking part in every aspect took with your phone?” the 34-year-old, calling 2009 single “The Girl and the Robot,” the remix of music making,” says Berge. from back home in Stockholm, asks Royksopp’s of which was nominated for a Grammy. The three Royksopp was happy to shake up its creative Svein Berge and Torbjorn Brundtland. linked up again on “None of Dem,” from Robyn’s process a dozen years into the duo’s career and Meanwhile, the two producers, on the phone breakout 2010 project Body Talk, which landed four years after its 2010 LP Senior. “Sometimes from their Norwegian hometown Tromso, sound Robyn a spot opening for Katy Perry on her 2011 I think that we are getting older, and maybe we like they need a nap. “We were drinking, quite arena tour and spawned the critically beloved club are not that interesting,” says Brundtland, 29, severely, until 7 in the morning,” says Berge, 38, single “Dancing on My Own,” the backdrop for a without a hint of insincerity. “Adding something promising to send the pictures. memorable closing scene from HBO’s Girls. new to what we’re doing is just refreshing. It’s Partying, traveling, creating — it’s a famil- When Robyn finished touring behindBody different, in the way that it should be.” iar mix for the Scandinavian trio. Another Talk, she found herself floating over to Norway Do It Again’s title track hit No. 16 on Billboard’s long night out last year birthed “Do It Again,” to create with Berge and Brundtland, looking to Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, and the carbonated title track from Robyn and avoid the pressure that comes with following up “Monument” appears in a new TV ad for Volvo’s Royksopp’s five-song “mini-album,” due May 26 a hit. “We started working with no real agenda,” new Drive-E that stars Robyn — the first time she on Cherrytree/Interscope. The trio refers to says Robyn. “It was an outlet for not having to let her music soundtrack a commercial. “It’s not ARTIST ON THE VERGE DENIRO FARRAR Age 26 From Charlotte, N.C. Sounds like A young Scarface, gritty and sincere, with a penchant for menacing and hazily ambient beats. Best songs “Bow Down,” featuring Denzel Curry, a ferocious trap anthem that samples Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate; “The Calling,” a classic Farrar confessional: “I just had two babies with no money, is that tough luck?” Need to know Farrar first made noise on SoundCloud in 2012 with an affecting remix of a Grimes song and tunes with alt-hip-hop producers Ryan Hemsworth and Lunice. He calls his music “cult rap,” a genre he says is “based solely on substance — not flamboyant activity.” Hometown hustle Farrar, the fourth of six kids raised by a single mom, dropped out of school in ninth grade and cut his teeth selling weed and working for TGI Friday’s. “My mom tried to keep a firm hand on us, but it was tough — she worked so much,” he says. “There were a lot of opportunities to do wild stuff.” Before SoundCloud, he and a cousin sold CDs outside of stores in Charlotte. Now, show money and a record deal with Vice/Warner Bros. pays for a house and two sons, ages 13 and 9 months. “The cost of living in Charlotte is dope,” says Farrar. Next up Farrar’s latest EP and first release for Vice/Warner, Rebirth, arrived May 20, but he’s already back in the studio. A collaborative EP with Hemsworth is in the works for later this year. —Reggie Ugwu FARRAR: JESSICA LEHRMAN 48 BILLBOARD | MAY 31, 2014.