Album of the Month: The Knife: Silent Shout (2006)
'I wanted to see right through to the other side...'
Like many modern bands, The Knife rose to prominence when a cover of their single 'Heartbeats' was used in a Sony commercial. Unlike most bands, however, they have decided to follow up their brush with commercial favour by releasing 'Silent Shout', the darkest, most sinister and downright evil electropop album since Coil's 'Love's Secret Domain'. Just check out the lead-off single and title track, streaming with its appropriately nasty video here. http://www.mtv.co.uk/mtvdance/music/article.jhtml;jsessionid=3LWWVHXHAFFSJQFIAIHSFE4AVABBAIV0?articleId=45132606 From the ominous pulsating bassline and the constantly mutating synth part, it's immediately clear that this song won't be being used to sell electronic products anytime soon. And then the vocals enter, processed beyond recognition of gender or source and strategically doubled at sinister fourths, whispering dark secrets in your ear, sinister, inhuman yet somehow not mechanical. The first time I heard this, the hairs rose on the back of my neck. And the sheer depth of the sound - full of darkness and texture, it almost sounds three-dimensional, like you could reach out and touch it, or indeed get physically sucked into it. The video itself is almost unnecessary - the end result is so synaesthetic, you can already see the pulsating lights, the warped figures disappearing into the forest, that grotesque face.
The Knife are Olof Dreijer and Karin Dreijer Andersson, a Swedish brother and sister duo who create music in their own studio and release it on their own label. Olof is responsible for the beats, whilst Karin takes care of the vocals and lyrics. Karin has an impressive tone and vocal range, which is often manipulated beyond recognition by pitch shifters, octave doublers and the like to help create the characters of the various personae that she inhabits in these songs. These range from the mythical sirens in 'The Captain' to the thuggish misogynist in 'One Hit', who, with the help of extreme vocal processing, sounds convincingly masculine and brutish. Olof's musical palette is no less varied, supporting the songs with the appropriate amount of menace and veiled aggression. Thus the album travels from the eerie synth string intro to 'The Captain' to the sickly dancefloor mania of 'We Share Our Mother's Health' to the fading light of album closer 'Still Light' the soliloquy of a dying hospital patient.
The over-riding mood of the album is one of fear and paranoia. Characters often feel angry or afraid, hurt or trapped by forces outside their control, but are unable to fully express their emotions. The desperate housewife in 'From Off To On' dreams of a happy, normal life, but is denied any release outside that provided nightly by TV oblivion. The ill-fated hermaphrodite in the title track is haunted by visions of his/her own death. This is accentuated by the album's music - the songs are so nearly normal electropop songs, yet there is something indefinably yet tangibly wrong with them. Like A Certain Ratio's classic 'Knife Slits Water', all the ingredients for a dancefloor smash are there, but the normal cycle of tension and release is broken, creating a distinct sense of unease. Like the face in the music video, the most sinister thing about it is how in the corrupted features we can see traces of what was naturally meant to be. I can't imagine this music being played in your average hedonistic nightclub.
This album is a thrilling journey into the heart of darkness. By adopting these warped and damaged personas, Karin is able to express a picture of the world seen from the diseased, the dying, and the dispossessed which throws the listener's world view into sharp relief. It is this embrace of darkness that truly sets The Knife apart from most modern groups, who are afraid to so challenge themselves and their audience, and in any case have their eyes firmly fixed on the glittering prize of commercial success. For their courage alone The Knife deserve praise and admiration, but with it they have made one of the most compelling modern albums I have heard for a long, long time. And it's been worth the wait.
Like many modern bands, The Knife rose to prominence when a cover of their single 'Heartbeats' was used in a Sony commercial. Unlike most bands, however, they have decided to follow up their brush with commercial favour by releasing 'Silent Shout', the darkest, most sinister and downright evil electropop album since Coil's 'Love's Secret Domain'. Just check out the lead-off single and title track, streaming with its appropriately nasty video here. http://www.mtv.co.uk/mtvdance/music/article.jhtml;jsessionid=3LWWVHXHAFFSJQFIAIHSFE4AVABBAIV0?articleId=45132606 From the ominous pulsating bassline and the constantly mutating synth part, it's immediately clear that this song won't be being used to sell electronic products anytime soon. And then the vocals enter, processed beyond recognition of gender or source and strategically doubled at sinister fourths, whispering dark secrets in your ear, sinister, inhuman yet somehow not mechanical. The first time I heard this, the hairs rose on the back of my neck. And the sheer depth of the sound - full of darkness and texture, it almost sounds three-dimensional, like you could reach out and touch it, or indeed get physically sucked into it. The video itself is almost unnecessary - the end result is so synaesthetic, you can already see the pulsating lights, the warped figures disappearing into the forest, that grotesque face.
The Knife are Olof Dreijer and Karin Dreijer Andersson, a Swedish brother and sister duo who create music in their own studio and release it on their own label. Olof is responsible for the beats, whilst Karin takes care of the vocals and lyrics. Karin has an impressive tone and vocal range, which is often manipulated beyond recognition by pitch shifters, octave doublers and the like to help create the characters of the various personae that she inhabits in these songs. These range from the mythical sirens in 'The Captain' to the thuggish misogynist in 'One Hit', who, with the help of extreme vocal processing, sounds convincingly masculine and brutish. Olof's musical palette is no less varied, supporting the songs with the appropriate amount of menace and veiled aggression. Thus the album travels from the eerie synth string intro to 'The Captain' to the sickly dancefloor mania of 'We Share Our Mother's Health' to the fading light of album closer 'Still Light' the soliloquy of a dying hospital patient.
The over-riding mood of the album is one of fear and paranoia. Characters often feel angry or afraid, hurt or trapped by forces outside their control, but are unable to fully express their emotions. The desperate housewife in 'From Off To On' dreams of a happy, normal life, but is denied any release outside that provided nightly by TV oblivion. The ill-fated hermaphrodite in the title track is haunted by visions of his/her own death. This is accentuated by the album's music - the songs are so nearly normal electropop songs, yet there is something indefinably yet tangibly wrong with them. Like A Certain Ratio's classic 'Knife Slits Water', all the ingredients for a dancefloor smash are there, but the normal cycle of tension and release is broken, creating a distinct sense of unease. Like the face in the music video, the most sinister thing about it is how in the corrupted features we can see traces of what was naturally meant to be. I can't imagine this music being played in your average hedonistic nightclub.
This album is a thrilling journey into the heart of darkness. By adopting these warped and damaged personas, Karin is able to express a picture of the world seen from the diseased, the dying, and the dispossessed which throws the listener's world view into sharp relief. It is this embrace of darkness that truly sets The Knife apart from most modern groups, who are afraid to so challenge themselves and their audience, and in any case have their eyes firmly fixed on the glittering prize of commercial success. For their courage alone The Knife deserve praise and admiration, but with it they have made one of the most compelling modern albums I have heard for a long, long time. And it's been worth the wait.
posted by Jonathan Thornton at 7:43 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home