Kings of Convenience

Singer/songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe make up the Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience. The pair were schoolmates who started playing together as teenagers before forming the group in 1999 and releasing their debut album, Quiet Is the New Loud, two years later. As the title implies, their sound brought a hushed, acoustic-based approach to the era’s indie-pop scene, imagining a picnic where Belle and Sebastian shared lunch with Simon & Garfunkel. Besides being popular in their homeland, the duo found fans in the U.K. and built a hardy cult fanbase in the U.S. After a remix record and two more original albums, the Kings took down their shingle for a dozen years before returning with the 2021 album Peace Or Love. Its entry into the Norwegian and British charts proved that the duo’s deft folk-pop was as subtly infectious as ever.