Koop

Strange Love by Koop

I'm constantly delighted by the Internet's ability to lead in serendipitous directions. In an idle moment I was playing Red, a roughly physics-based 1 tower defence game I found on MetaFilter, and liked the soundtrack. Googling the words tracked it to be the Jazzanova Mix of the ambient track Absolute Space by Koop.

Koop is a Swedish band that produces an interesting mix of rather unclassifiable work - they variously call it fusion jazz or acid jazz - using guest vocalists, a minimal instrument lineup, and a backing of sampled material from vinyl records:

It is difficult to properly categorize Koop’s unique music style. One part jazz, one part electronica, with a heavy hand of swing and a pinch of Caribbean influence- the band will not be pigeonholed. The Swedish duo of Magnus Zingmark and Oscar Simonsson are known for sampling music from many eras and influences, which gives their pieces a timeless feeling of modern retro.
- k-o-o-p.com

It varies between rather ambient sounds, wistful blues, chillout, old-style torch singing, and exhilarating swing. On brief acquaintance, I particularly like Absolute Space; the above--linked Strange Love, with vocals by the jazz/cabaret singer Hilde Louise Asbjørnsen (I didn't realise this song had featured in a Coca Cola ad, "Library"); the gentle chillout jazz of Waltz 4 Koop; and the wistful but ultimately feelgood Come to Me.

For more tracks, see YouTube and at the official Koop Myspace page. There's more background on the band and its styles at the unofficial site k-o-o-p.com.

1, By "roughly physics-based", I mean that the scenario is loosely that of fending off descending moons/asteroids with missiles. The impacts are realistically ballistic in terms of speed, size and angle: but not realistic in that the incoming objects don't interact with each other; nor do the missiles lose momentum from impacts, so that multiple snooker-style cannons work.

- Ray