Erlend Øye

It once would have been hard to imagine Erlend Øye as an electronic musician. When the Norwegian singer/songwriter first appeared in the duo Kings of Convenience, in the late ‘90s, he was making soft, acoustic folk music. But Øye, born in Bergen in 1975, was destined for the club: After Röyksopp featured his distinctive, milky croon on 2001’s “Poor Leno”, he increasingly found himself collaborating with dance acts like DJ Hell. A move to Berlin spurred the lilting house productions of his 2003 solo debut, Unrest, followed by a 2004 DJ-Kicks mix steeped in minimal techno. Øye gradually returned to softer sounds in his solo activities, which he continued in parallel with the long-running Kings of Convenience and a side project, the indie-pop band The Whitest Boy Alive. In 2012, he moved to Sicily and recorded 2014’s Legao, a vibey collection of reggae-tinged easy listening; then, when he and fellow Whitest Boy Sebastian Maschat found themselves stranded by the pandemic in Mexico, they released 2020’s Quarantine at El Ganzo, a low-key collection of songs recorded at the hotel where they were holed up. However anxious the moment may have been, you’d never know it from Øye’s honeyed voice.