Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and its time to catch up with some of the music that we missed earlier in the year as we approach the start of a new one, because it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! For the Norwegian indie folk duo of Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe, you could say that it has been a ‘Rocky Trail’ on their return to making music. After a 12 year hiatus, in which the Bergen native pair saw some relationships continue to form and dissolve, felt record label pressure, and they confronted the onset of their 40’s, the Cornelius collaborators have returned with their first album to be released since 2009’s ‘Declaration Of Dependence’, a #10 hit in Italy. During their time, Kings Of Convenience were the inspiration for the Indian dream pop duo Parekh & Singh, they topped MTV’s European list of the best music videos in 2004 for ‘I’d Rather Dance With You’ and they performed at the Primavera Sound Festivals in both Barcelona and Porto. Øye is also known for a side project, The Whitest Boy Alive. ‘Peace Or Love’, their latest LP and fourth studio album release overall, features two collaborations with the Canadian global indie pop star Feist, and it reached #26 on the UK Albums Chart. Recorded across five years in five different cities, ‘Peace Or Love’ was a mellow take on Easy Listening Pop where Bøe and Øye leaned into the appeal of ease instead of confrontation after a difficult period of time away. After all, despite envy of Europeans easy leisure, it is distinctly an American trait to look for cracks in their mirage or facade – and that facade, if there was one, was very smooth here. They recently went on tour to support the record, including a double-header at London’s Royal Festival Hall in September, and a share of these dates have already come and gone. However, they are still scheduled to visit sites in Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg from March until June 2022 – if Covid restrictions allow for it. Let’s hear more about their ‘Rocky Trail’ below.
“Another classic Eirik composition that skillfully ignores the verse-chorus-chorus blueprint”, Bøe and Øye said about the structure of ‘Rocky Trail’ in April during a press statement for Paste Magazine, concluding, “It’s pop music, but not as we know it”, in their teaser. A welcome re-introduction to the group and what their sound achieves well, ‘Rocky Trail’ features a humble approach to production where the Kings’ simply harmonize about life’s grief and a failed relationship with a man featuring “a world on his shoulders that needed lifting” on top of a wholesome and jaunting acoustic guitar riff. The duo recite sequences like “Brave enough to go climbing up a wall so high that no sunlight is seen through winter” and “Brave enough to go travelling the world without money to eat or sleep for” to express a deep sense of freedom and contentment that create buoyant vocal hooks and laminate reality in a more optimistic light. There are some moments of a bleaker nature, with the opening refrain of “Let’s say you give me one more time, One last chance to speak again, Let’s start from what we left unsaid” highlighting a shade of relationship break-up glumness, for example. However, the tonal differences are sugarcoated by a warm violin string section that adds a slightly bitter ache to the forefront of the track. Their intertwining vocals are uplifting, giving the anecdotes of travelling penniless and surviving hungry a more inspirational feeling instead of a pessimistic outlook. However, the in-sync and timbre voices of Bøe and Øye remain a key fixture of their charm, while lyrics like “I should have carried you to the top of the rocky trail” have moments of reflective contemplation to them, later giving the lyrics of “How am I to know about your problems and your load/I am blind to what you show” some additional meaning in the realm of forgiveness. Overall, ‘Rocky Trail’ was a solid Folk track that doesn’t show any signs of being left on the cutting room floor for 12 years. Instead, it feels like a paled back ode to restoration from the duo and it seems like a warm welcome back from them. Delicacy and care are given to both of their vocal performances, a tactic that perfectly expresses an innocence and veteran experience simultaneously, attained through their pitches. A beautiful and simple return to form.
That’s all for Monday, and, with that conclusion, it’s time for me and the Kings Of Convenience to lead you on your way through the ‘Rocky Trail’ of mid-December living. I hope that all goes well for you today, and please feel free to join me again tomorrow to resume our ‘Countdown To Christmas’ with a fresh new Grunge spin on a popular Christmas carol that was performed by a female-led indie punk band from Auckland, New Zealand. Signed to Carpark Records in the US, they have toured throughout the UK and some European cities supporting Death Cab For Cutie in 2020.
Connect with One Track At A Time:
One Track At A Time 