Smuggled Sounds: Röyksopp: Norsk smoking mushroom

RKOP001 Despite the fact that Brundtland and Berge were schoolmates in their hometown of Tromsø and experimented with electronic instruments in the early 90's, Röyksopp only appeared years later when they met again in Bergen. In the city was a vital scene for underground electronic music at this time, and the band worked with other Norwegian musicians such as Frost, Kings of Convenience, Those Norwegians and Drum Island in what was called the Bergen Wave. Their first singles were released by local independent label Tellé, and their album Melody A.M. on British label Wall of Sound. It spawned singles like "Eple", "Poor Leno", "Remind Me" and "Sparks".
The popularity of the duo's album was boosted by several graphically experimental music videos. One of them, an infographic-styled video by French company H5 for the track "Remind Me", won the 2002 MTV Europe Music Award for best music video.
The song "Eple" was licensed by Apple Computer for use as the startup music to the company's Mac OS X Panther operating system, playing the first time a user booted a new Mac. Eple (pronounced Ep-le, rather than Ep-pull as thought by many) means "apple" in Norwegian.
Röyksopp's first single "So Easy" became popular in the UK after it was used in an T-Mobile advert.
The word Röyksopp, which literally means " smoke mushroom", is the Norwegian name for the Lycoperdale genus in the fungus kingdom, a kind of mushroom that will make a smoky cloud if touched. (The English term is fuzz ball or puffball) Norwegians pronounce the word as ['røyk?sop:] in IPA, which an English speaker can try to approximate with roik-sopp. RKOP002
Their new album The Understanding was released on 12th July 2005, preceded by the single "Only This Moment" on 27th June, 2005. The video "Only This Moment" is closely based on the events of the Paris 1968 riots and elements of propaganda are found throughout the video clip. The album's second single, "49 Percent," was released on 26th September, 2005.
Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein BergeRöyksopp played an hour long set at Glastonbury 2005 on the Other Stage that mainly consisted of new material from their album The Understanding, but also covered classics such as "Poor Leno". At least 30 minutes of the set was covered by BBC Three's Glastonbury coverage, followed by Fatboy Slim's set.