Hear Entire New Album By The Knife
January 28, 2010 by Peter
Filed under Electronic, News
The Knife (in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock) have announced that their new record, ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’, is now available buy directly from the Rabid Records store as a download or pre-order a CD copy and receive the download instantly.
The album features songs Olof and Karin wrote for the Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma’s opera based on Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of the Species.’and will be available worldwide on iTunes and Amazon beginning Febuary 1st and the CD will be in stores on March 1st.
You can pre-order the CD or FLAC and stream every track here.
MP3: New Track From The Knife: “Colouring Of Pigeons”
January 6, 2010 by Peter
Filed under Electronic, MP3s, News
The Knife announced plans to release the studio version of the music they scored for the opera ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’, on the 1st March 2010 in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock. Olof and Karin wrote the music for the Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma’s opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of the Species.’
They have released their first track free for mailing list subscribers and can be downloaded here: “Colouring Of Pigeons”
Read the full details from their press release including track list below.
Commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to write the music for their opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of the Species’, The Knife decided to make this a collaborative process, working with artists Mt. Sims and Planningtorock for the first time, to capture the huge width of the Darwin and evolution theme. They extensively researched Darwin related literature and articles, with Olof attending a field recording workshop in the Amazon to find inspiration and to record sounds.
‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ is a unique musical project. Richard Dawkins’s gene trees have formed the basis of some of the musical composition, artificial sounds have been mixed with field recordings, with the music inspired by everything from the different stages of a bird learning its melody, to a song based on Darwin’s loving letters about his daughter Anne. These are compositions that challenge the conventional conception of opera music.
Pushing the experimental process further still, composer, choreographer, costume designer and set designer worked separately, only coming together 3 and a half months before the first performance of ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ in Copenhagen on the 2nd September 2009. Described as “shifting the position of operartic art in a single leap”, further performances of ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ are confirmed to take place in Athens (8-9 Jan), Stockholm (29 Jan-1 Feb), and Munster (5 June), with further dates to be announced.
Olof Dreijer says: “At first it was very difficult as we really didn’t know anything about opera. We’d never been to one. I didn’t even know what the word libretto meant. But after some studying, and just getting used to opera’s essence of pretentious and dramatic gestures, I found that there is a lot to learn and play with. In fact, our ignorance gave us a positive respectless approach to making opera. It took me about a year to become emotionally moved by an opera singer and now I really do. I really like the basic theatrical values of opera and the easy way it brings forward a narrative. We’ve approached this before in The Knife but never in such a clear way.”
Tracklist:
CD 1
01. Intro
02. Epochs
03. Geology
04. Upheaved
05. Minerals
06. Ebb Tide Explorer
07. Variation of Birds
08. Letter to Henslow
09. Schoal Swarm OrchestraCD 2
01. Annie’s Box
02. Tumult
03. Colouring of Pigeons
04. Seeds
05. Tomorrow in a Year
06. The Height of SummerBonus track
07. Annie’s Box (alt. vocal)
Album Review: Fever Ray
The elusive Karin Drijer Andersson is best known as the lead vocalist and one half of the electronic music duo The Knife. The Knife formed in 1999 and consists of Karin and her brother Olof Dreijer. Together they run their own record company, Rabid Records.
The Knife has quietly put out some great records including the critically acclaimed Silent Shout in 2006. Silent Shout moved The Knife into a darker direction musically, but Karin’s Fever Ray takes the listener to a much darker place that will haunt you from the depths of an oceanic abyss.
The first track and single “If I Had a Heart” begins with a depressed droning loop that continues throughout the song. This is followed by Karin’s modulated vocals which come in and evoke the mantra, “This will never end cause I want more|More, give me more, give me more.” Haunting masonic temple chants follow, complimenting her voice layers perfectly before the next verse save vocal effects. Inducing a haunting mood and raising things to an aesthetically higher octave pitch. This contrast is used throughout the record and give it the necessary amalgamation an ambient record like this deserves. The Fuck Buttons also did a damn good job remixing the track. Stereogum is streaming it here.
This record is hypnotic and brings the listener to a state of enlightenment that transcends anything The Knife has done previously by pushing the listener to a place that is both comfortable yet vulnerable. Using the juxtaposition of slow, subtle beats as a back drop to the mini-electronic drones, she creates a sound that is both ambient and psychedelic. Standout tracks like “Keep the Streets Empty for Me” and “Now is the Only TIme I Know” move the record into areas previously unexplored by anything she has done in the past.
This album is being released by Mute, and the physical release is not slated until March 23rd in the US but it was made available for digital download via Klicktrack and iTunes on January 13th. You can also stream the entire record on Klicktrack as well.
Coming in at a little over 48 minutes, Fever Ray is a brilliant record and a completely enveloping experience. Karen is able to find a separate vehicle that complements her work with The Knife, much like Thom Yorke did with The Eraser. Karin’s vocals here are unassailable, and she was able create a sound that is minimalistic yet perceptible. Along side Animal Collective, this makes for an amazing start to the new year for music, and we still have 11 months left in 2009!
Here’s the video for “If I Had a Heart,” which was directed by Andreas Nilsson. It’s one of the most chilling and well produced videos I’ve ever seen. Andreas also directed The Knife’s Silent Shout.
Fever Ray – If I had a Heart
Tracklisting:
1. If I Had A Heart
2. When I Grow Up
3. Dry & Dusty
4. Seven
5. Triangle Walks
6. Concrete Walls
7. Now’s The Only Time I Know
8. I’m Not Done
9. Keep The Streets Empty For Me
10. Coconut
http://feverray.com/
http://www.myspace.com/feverray