So here’s how it all began..

I was sitting at home watching the premere of NBC’s Last Comic Standing. Between some hallarious acts was a commercial break. One commercial which I’m sure everybody has seen at least once is the Geico Caveman in the airport commercial where he walks past that notorious sign “Even a caveman can do it.” So the commercial has some really good elevator music that I found myself humming to as I made myself some tea. At that point my curiosity grew… Who did that song? Was it commissioned by Geico? A little research revealed that the song was made by a Norwegian Electronic Band known as Royksopp (Smoking Mushroom in Norsk).

Tagged as Chillout, Ambient, Dance, Electronic, Electronica, Indie, Norwegian, and Trip-hop(?)… Last.fm has this to say about them…

Röyksopp (sometimes misspelled as ‘Royksopp’ or ‘Røyksopp’ even “Royskopp”) is an electronic and chill-out music duo based in Bergen, Norway, but the members are originally from Tromsø, Norway. The band consists of Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge. The group formed officially in 1998 and released their debut album Melody A.M. in 2001. In Norwegian, “The word “Röyksopp”, which literally means “(a) smoke mushroom”, refers to a type of mushroom that will make a smoky cloud when touched. (The English term is fuzz ball or puffball).

Röyksopp have won many prizes for their music, one of them in MTV Europe Music Awards 2002 for the best music video (Remind Me). Remind Me was also used in the popular Geico insurance “Caveman” TV commercials while their first single “So Easy” became popular in the UK after it was used in an T-Mobile advert.

The song “Eple” was licensed by Apple for use as the welcome music to Mac OS X Panther operating system, playing the first time a user booted a new Mac.

July 12th, 2005 the band released their second album The Understanding, which was preceded by the hit single “Only This Moment” on June 27th. The album’s second single, “49 Percent” was released September 26th same year, followed by their third single, “What Else Is There?”, December 5th, 2005, which is a collaboration with Karin Dreijer from the Swedish electronic band, The Knife. The fourth single, “Beautiful Day Without You”, was released on June 26, 2006.

weblinks:
– http://www.royksopp.com (official site)
– http://www.royksopp.de
– http://www.royksopp.net

Their song Remind me (the one on the Geico Commercial) is what really got me going. I found their song on iTunes and decided to get the album as well. I’ve grown to really like their laid-back tempo and solid beat. I can’t help but wonder if the bit of Norwegian-ness in me is what fueled my curiosity to know more about them.

Regardless… this is good music. So for your listening pleasure I’ve posted below a music video with their song in full. Enjoy!

~J out

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