Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique - Love Is Free (ft. Maluca)

It’s a bloody travesty, but we all do it sometimes - we forget just how banging songs like ‘Dancing on My Own’ and ‘Every Heartbeat’ really are. Like a pantomime fairy godmother, Robyn has developed a knack of appearing in giant glittering plumes of smoke to remind us she’s brilliant whenever shit hits the fan. Last year she pulled the same stunt with Röyksopp and Robyn - her collaborative project with Norwegian electro giants Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland - and re-established herself as the dancefloor’s head honco. Now with new outlet La Bagatelle Magique - which translates roughly to ‘The Magic Trifle - she’s done it again.

La Bagatelle Magique is a project with a difference, too. Half-way through writing with bandmate Markus Jägerstedt, Robyn’s long-time producer Christian Falk - who she’s worked with since forever - very sadly passed away. Falk’s influence remains all over La Bagatelle Magique, though, and the pair carried on using his pre-programmed samples and synths to complete the work. It formed part of their grieving process, Robyn told Annie Mac last night on Radio 1, and beneath ‘Love is Free’s haze of head-rush euphoria, there’s a genuine, emotional core. Glitching and pounding, latin flourishes cover the track like the fall-out from confetti guns. “You never know what you’re getting, cos you can’t control it and you can unthink it,” chants Robyn. Whatever runaway dance train she hopped aboard to make ‘Love Is Free,’ it headed down the best track imaginable, and the destination is perfect.