Kings Of Convenience – Riot On An Empty Street

Over the last two decades, the idea that “dance music” could ever signify a static, all-encompassing genre has essentially passed. “Dance” has since melted down into a giant puddle of prefix-and-suffix-affixed subcultures, and Norwegian folk duo Kings Of Convenience are rallying for the inclusion of one more: post-club.

Part-time (and widely acclaimed) DJ Erlend Oye and his songwriting partner Erik Glambek Boe — adorably credited as “low voice” and “high voice” in the album’s liner notes — play tender folk songs remarkably well-suited to jerky cab rides at dawn, when your vision is foggy at best and home seems awfully far away. With their doleful acoustic guitars, breathy, microphone-eating vocals, and pristine production, Oye and Boe have mastered the art of the comedown.

Riot On An Empty Street, the duo’s third original full-length, nods to the soft intimacy of Nick Drake, and, perhaps surprisingly, fails to reference Oye’s extracurricular electro-jaunts. The Kings tend to avoid electronic flourishes, opting instead for pretty organics: piano, strings, guitar, and the soft muscle of two perfectly harmonized voices.

The opener “Homesick” is a joint love letter from Oye & Boe to Simon & Garfunkel (complete with self-referential longing for “two soft voices blended in perfection”), while “Know How”, featuring Broken Social Scene vocalist Leslie Feist, mixes a swinging, lounge-infused piano melody with sweet, toe-tapping vocals.

Folky, tender, and seeped in gray, pre-dawn light, Riot On An Empty Street is a tender homage to the art of descending.