Robag Wruhme will release his new album, Venq Tolep, on June 7 via Pampa Records. 

The 11-track album follows 2009’s Thora Vukk, also on DJ Koze’s Pampa. Its earliest tracks date back seven years, while the newest were recorded in 2019. 

We’re told that while the album may speak the language of club music, with seemingly familiar soundscapes, layers, and arrangements, the tracks boldly verge on feeling like songs. “Is it techno pop? Pop techno? Pop ambient? Ambient pop?” the label explains, describing the album as “Wruhme’s first venture into pop music.” 

With playful lightheartedness, Wruhme takes synthetic sounds and sampled noises, cuts them to fit, and turns them into beats without his music ever sounding pieced together. 

Alongside the announcement, Wruhme has shared the album’s first single and title track, which draws on all the album’s various movements: the light, pensive mood, the subtle, driving rhythm in the mid-BPM range, the ambient-sounding layers of synthesised strings, and the percussive electric piano melody lines. 

“‘Venq Tolep’ is the little brother of ‘Thora Vukk,’ but in contrast, the production on this album took me years to finish, instead of from one organic spurt. I was only able to work on it on and off, from time to time. Turns out becoming a Dad twice over is very time consuming. — Robag Wruhme

Tracklisting

01. Advent feat. Lysann Zander  

02. Westfal feat. Lysann Zander

03. Iklahx

04. AK-DO 

05. Volta Copy (Ambient Vers)

06. Komalh

07. Ago Lades

08. Venq Topel

09. Bézique Atour Feat. Oxia

10. Wata Alma feat. Siden Eldresen & Bugge Wesseltoft (You Might Say)

11. Ende #2 

Venq Tolep LP lands June 7 via Pampa Records, with the title track streaming below.