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THE KNIFE

The Knife & Planningtorock & Mount Sims

Tomorrow, In A Year

    In 2009, The Knife was commissioned by the Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to provide music for an opera set to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Joining Karin and Olof as collaborators were Mt. Sims and Planningtorock.

    Karin: “We were invited by this Danish performance theatre company ​called Hotel Pro Forma ​to make this piece. And we knew it was supposed to be performed in the Danish Royal Opera House in Copenhagen.”

    Olof: “The theatre company wanted to make an opera about evolution theory and Darwin ideas. And they asked if we could make music for that. We entered that project thinking, Of course, it’s important to talk about Darwin’s impact on fascism in Europe.​ It is as important as the colonial history of Europe — how Darwin’s ideas were misused to promote fascism. But throughout the project, it became clear that [the theatre company] was not interested in that. They were interested in biology and geology.”

    Luckily, Karin and Olof had asked their friends Mt. Sims and Planningtorock to write the opera with them. Together, they wriggled free from conceptual potholes. Instead of bowing to the traditional form’s grandiosity, the collaborators went granular with their sonic palette.

    Karin: “You were very into field recordings at this time.”

    Olof: “Yes, a short period. Which, actually, I just think is silly. Who gets to say that recording this sound in nature is art? It shows the hierarchy of contemporary art. Not everyone can say that a recording of the wind, or whatever, is art.”

    The studio recorded versions of the compositions were released as Tomorrow, In A Year in 2010 by Rabid Records. Now The Knife continues its 20th anniversary celebration as they announce the first-ever vinyl pressing of their work Tomorrow, In A Year.

    TRACK LISTING

    A1. Intro
    A2. Epochs
    A3. Geology
    A4. Upheaved
    A5. Minerals
    B1. Ebb Tide Explorer
    B2. Variation Of Birds
    B3. Letter To Henslow
    B4. Schoal Swarm Orchestra
    C1. Annie’s Box
    C2. Tumult
    C3. Colouring Of Pigeons
    D1. Seeds
    D2. Tomorrow In A Year
    D3. The Height Of Summer

    The Knife

    Silent Shout - 2021 Reissue

      The Knife continues their 20th Anniversary celebrations as the duo of Karin and Olof Dreijer present a new violet coloured vinyl pressing of their critically adored third studio album, ‘Silent Shout’.

      The Knife reached yet another pinnacle with ‘Silent Shout’. After the effervescent, Eurodisco-tinged pop of their 2003 album, ‘Deep Cuts’, the Dreijers developed a dark parallel world on their 2006 follow-up. With menacing electronics rooted in early techno and identity masking via the art of pitch shifting, The Knife used their platform to subvert institutional structures and challenge social norms. They were a band with something to say and people were listening.

      For all its clean air, the isolated community they were raised in was suffocatingly patriarchal. The weight of gendered expectations almost too much to bear. In that context, ‘Silent Shout’ is a protest album of sorts. Songs like ‘Forest Families’ and ‘One Hit’ gnash their teeth at the pressure that sexism, homophobia and capitalism exert. The album’s sometimes eerie interpretation of 90s techno and trance - a formative era for both siblings - proved the perfect foil for the stinging social realism of its song lyrics.

      While there had always been at least a year-long delay between the Swedish and international releases of their previous albums, ‘Silent Shout’ was released everywhere at once. And, for the first time, they took their music on tour. On stage, they wore black pantyhose over their heads daubed with UV paint. For interviews, they used their bird masks and altered their voices any time they were on video. They became famous for not wanting to be famous.

      STAFF COMMENTS

      Patrick says: If Deep Cuts delivered technicolour tropical pop with a naive exuberance, "Silent Shout" was its moody teenage sibling. Dark, shadowy and at times stomping. The opener is a Scando-tech bomb I have never fallen out of love with, lead single "We Share Our Mothers' Health" is a masterpiece in pitch shifted mind melt, and the rest of the tracklist is littered with jams (Marble House, Na Na Na and Like a Pen anyone?)

      TRACK LISTING

      Silent Shout
      Neverland
      The Captain
      We Share Our Mothers’ Health
      Na Na Na
      Marble House
      Like A Pen
      From Off To On
      Forest Families
      One Hit
      Still Light


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