Soundtrack for a Hungover Morning

It sucks being hungover. There's a wealth of conflicting feelings going on in your head. One is 'ow', obviously that one's quite persistant, but there's also a big feeling of 'what on earth did I do to deserve this? I just had a few beers... is that a crime?' and I think that's the worst part. A hangover is more than just a pain in your head, it's an injustice. A deeply unfair affliction. If last night I'd cheated on my girlfriend, run over an old lady, and robbed a petrol station at gunpoint, then karma would at least be neutral. Or perhaps today is going to be an awesome day to make up for it?

Well, your day is about to get a whole lot more awesome. On some TV ad at the moment, the song "Remind Me" by Royksopp, off their delightful 2002 album Melody AM is featured. It reminded me of the genius of Kings of Convenience's Erlend Oye, who put out a DJ-Kicks album in 2004. That album was one of my highlights of the year, yielding a perfect Scandinavian blend of bleepy electro and gentle atmospherics. It also happens to be the soundtrack for this morning's hangover.

Sheltered Life / Fine Day (A Capella) - Erlend Oye
Poor Leno (Silicone Soul's Hypno House Dub) / There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (A Capella) (The Smiths cover) - Royksopp

As this is a DJ mix album, the starts and ends of the tracks are a little abrupt, but let that be more of an incentive to buy it. The beauty of the album comes not just from the song selection and mixing (both of which are spot on) but also by the way Erlend sings little bits over the tracks himself. To introduce a song, he'll sometimes sing the chorus of the new song over the previous song before kicking it in. Sometimes he'll double the vocals already being sung, and sometimes as in the cases above, he sings an entirely different song over an intrumental version of the first song. These little sparks of ingenuity are what really mark the album way above others of its type. Anyone can put together a DJ mix of songs they like. Not everyone can do it quite this amazingly well.

- Duncan