the kniφe - shaking the habitual

i don't deny that. i just don't hear it here.

This discussion is very interesting to me since I've listened to the album a few times without noticing the lyrics much at all.

I'm not sure I ever really noticed them on Tomorrow in a Year either tbh.

Given their audience, it's political, but not particular challenging or confrontational

nahhh, maybe the hardcore superfans, but the knife are now in a place where they get a lot of casual interest just by dint of their stature - they're an automatic part of any music outlet's news cycle. judging by a lot of the reactions - from the "lol how CRAZY and WACKY and BONKERS they are for being political" to the dismissive "NO WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT PRIVILEGE WE DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT PRIVILEGE IT'S BORING" set, i'd say they're being challenging and confrontational to a depressing extent

Lex OTM. These reactions - like the one in the VV, but also coming from those who chide others for being politicised - are arguably as bad as those who are coming from an opposing political viewpoint. This whole 'Who do you think you are trying to talk about "issues", BORE OFF!' thing that you see on social media is a poisonous indictment of how little politics and pop culture have come to interact with each other up until fairly recently.

"I don't like protest music", "Music and politics shouldn't mix", "I want escapism, I don't want to hear about the news" - these are all things I've heard at one point or another, and in many cases I agree. The difference between The Knife and your average agit-prop dissident is that they don't just make the political personal again, but internal too. By making its message so implicit, Shaking the Habitual addresses its subject matter in such a way that it becomes an essential part of the every listener's core character and psyche. Rather than railing against the TV or a specific political entity, there's a kind of solipsistic anarchy at work here: You DO have the right to an opinion because YOU are in control of your own destiny no matter what historical hegemonic structures have been put into place to make you think otherwise.

This record strikes me as political in the way that early 00s Radiohead were political, they obviously know their stuff but it manifests itself in the music through chopped up fragmentary lyrics and soundbytes and while that's admirable for similar reasons it also fails for similar reasons.

why would you say it fails in this case?

it's not a crass record

I'm fascinated with the "handling of material"-- fascinated? I mean dumbstruck, this is a game-changing album, generative dance music. This is a big album for me

xxxpost I sort of agree, but Radiohead always seemed to harbour a relatively unguided sense of despair towards the modern world. Thom couches his malaise in gnomic imagery that flits between the nonsensical ('woke up sucking on a lemon') and the opaque (cars are bad, people die in them and stuff uhm...) Whenever Thom's lyrics got explicit they seemed ever-so slightly hamfisted or placard-waving, as on Hail to the Thief. I enjoy that period of Radiohead, but I don't once remember something like '2 + 2 = 5' making me think of anything beyond 'There's no hope, Thom's shouting but it's just coming out as garbage. He's waving his hands in the air but he's floundering and being drowned out'. HTTT is nihilistic in its outlook, overwhelmed by the world whereas STH is very much focused in its subject matter as well as offering equality and justice as a means of change. It's why when I listen to this Knife album, I find myself wanting to unlock the lyrical codes as opposed to with Radiohead when I was quite happy for Thom's voice to become another instrument.

Many of us are guilty of thinking politics is a substance you inject like a steroid into music when every song by its nature is political: Rihanna, Brad Paisley, whatever. The transgression I hear in The Knife isn't in the lyrics, from which after several weeks I've managed to pick out a couple of conjunctions, a transitive verb, and some Raymond Williams keywords.

it always ends up drivel?

xpost

eh what now Alfred?

agree with this:

every song by its nature is political

eh what now Alfred?

was quoting Yorke's best-ever lyric.

OIC, never liked that song, but I guess that's a very good summation of how politics get treated when it comes to music. Too much focus on a single issue and you end up sounding like a soapbox punk-poet; conversely if you make everything too oblique the original message gets lost.

Many of us are guilty of thinking politics is a substance you inject like a steroid into music when every song by its nature is political: Rihanna, Brad Paisley, whatever.

Disagree somewhat. Songs aren't legislature, they are by definition non-political. Writing political discourse into your lyrics is no more than an aesthetic pose, like writing sex talk or sing-along.

I dunno – it's difficult for a gay man to view even a boy-girl relationship as non-political. I define "politics" more broadly; it isn't just depiction or analysis or engagement with George W. Bush or Iraq. Politics is the place where gender, race, sexuality, and ethnicity get catalyzed.

No, of course, of course, I've said before that you can infer a band's political beliefs from the way the drums are recorded.

xxpost there's always going to be some degree of it, but i think Alfred's saying that complaining about the Knife's political angle by trying to remove oneself from the equation ('LALALALALA I'M NOT INTERESTED') is futile since any piece of music operates on its own political level. Rihanna is implicitly political. Writing sex talk is in itself political. Let's talk about gender, baby.

both otm

I've said before that you can infer a band's political beliefs from the way the drums are recorded.

Would be interested to hear more about this.

(unless it was a joke)

Definitely easy to listen to this without considering "politics" in terms of sloganeering etc., and from reading the transcribed lyrics here I'd say there's not that much to mine from them besides referentialism. But the sonic aggression, the vocal processing, even the commercial suicide of what could have built upon the success of Silent Shout - it's straightforward to see political meaning in these aspects.

xp DL you're correct, "I'm not interested in your politics" is a futile response, but "I find no beauty in the gesture of this political statement" is a valid one.

How is it straightforward to see political meaning in sonic aggression or vocal processing?

@ Sund4r I'm joking/not joking, I do believe it, but it's an extreme statement of the same impulse that drives people to hear "woozy" and think "wantrepreneur", or "reverberant" and think "naive", or "banjo" and think "douchenozzle"

Similarly I feel that the most politically charged statements on this Knife record are non-verbal. Most obviously the gorgeous drone interlude. It's a lot of "fuck you and your idea of how an album should be", with "album" being interchangeable with what a hook should be, what a voice should sound like, how long a song should go on, how material should function, where the kick should fall, and so on

^ this

I genuinely felt, ah, "my habits was shook" on the very first listen to "Full of fire". Instead of hooks, they have these musical phrases that slide into view, don't repeat themselves, slip in and out of time and audibility, and are in this constantly changing state. i.e. fluid, like gender. Here's lex with "where's the hooks? love the Salt-N-Pepa reference tho" but I felt the Salt-N-Pepa ending was too on the nose, explicitly writing out what was already musically implied.

Now tho I love the ending, a song that long and that serious needs a wink

It's also a reference to an article on gender & language linked above somewhere.

You're right about how this album moves and flows and the economy it uses in its transcendent moments. These seem all the more important precisely because they haven't been milked dry through repetition.

Most obviously the gorgeous drone interlude. It's a lot of "fuck you and your idea of how an album should be", with "album" being interchangeable with what a hook should be, what a voice should sound like, how long a song should go on, how material should function, where the kick should fall, and so on

not disagreeing with you about The Political Is Musical, but i feel this in particular is a failure as political statement merely by dint of how people consume albums in 2013: compare and contrast nicki minaj's own "fuck you and your idea of how an album should be" with roman reloaded pandering to each of her fanbases at the same time

By "people" you mean yourself, though, and I'm not saying your listening is better/worse/more typical/less typical than anybody else's, but lots of people are listening in 2013 to The Knife in one sitting, on a stereo

Most obviously the gorgeous drone interlude. It's a lot of "fuck you and your idea of how an album should be", with "album" being interchangeable with what a hook should be, what a voice should sound like, how long a song should go on, how material should function, where the kick should fall, and so on

Ah, right. I guess I have trouble connecting those sorts of aesthetic challenges with actual political statements. (We have seen avant-garde artists with all sorts of political beliefs, with varying levels of commitments, through history and I don't think that political radicalism has been any sort of norm for musical radicals. Otoh, some of the most politically engaged and radical musicians have been quite conservative, even reactionary, in their aesthetics.) Tbh, I'm also not entirely even sure that the Knife is questioning these things in a really radical way, considering everything that was already done in 60s and 70s rock.

not disagreeing with you about The Political Is Musical, but i feel this in particular is a failure as political statement merely by dint of how people consume albums in 2013: compare and contrast nicki minaj's own "fuck you and your idea of how an album should be" with roman reloaded pandering to each of her fanbases at the same time

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 14:36 (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why is it a failure compared to the Nicki album? PS - I've listen to this front-to-back about 8 times this week.

How is it straightforward to see political meaning in sonic aggression or vocal processing?

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, April 24, 2013 6:10 AM (3 minutes ago)

i take seandalai's point about commercial suicide as a political act (aggressive self-ostracism, i.e. the politics of 80's indie), but i don't think the music here is more obviously political than the lyrics. the sounds support the words and vice-versa. they're both rather oblique, tbh.

also, alfred otm that all music is political, but it's valid and sensible, i think, to distinguish as notably "political" that which explicitly engages with certain subjects and ideas. this isn't to suggest that other music is less political, but simply to frame and highlight certain a specific set of concerns.

contenderizer otm

xp Honestly, Sund4r, I am super-duper reserved when it comes to inferring programmatic elements from musical material, ever since I attended the "With only a score of his 6th symphony, I can prove Tchaikovsky was molesting his nephew" lecture. I don't think the tie between politics-and-music is the radical component of this album. I think the fluidity of their material is totally radical, I've heard no precedent for it in electronic music except in modular synth demonstrations

all music is inherently political bc everything that exists is situated in the context of the politics/capitalism that produced it - the question is whether this album resists politics/capitalism successfully or just referents its own political context and i'm not sure it does that. sure, all drumming is inherently political, but not all drumming is transcendent.

I genuinely felt, ah, "my habits was shook" on the very first listen to "Full of fire". Instead of hooks, they have these musical phrases that slide into view, don't repeat themselves, slip in and out of time and audibility, and are in this constantly changing state. i.e. fluid, like gender. Here's lex with "where's the hooks? love the Salt-N-Pepa reference tho" but I felt the Salt-N-Pepa ending was too on the nose, explicitly writing out what was already musically implied.

...Now tho I love the ending, a song that long and that serious needs a wink

― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, April 24, 2013 6:27 AM (40 minutes ago)

great description, goon tie otm. i went through a similar push-pull with "full of fire". one of the principal pleasures afforded by this album lies in the coming to terms, the adjustment period. like dog latin, i've listened to the whole thing several times in the last couple weeks, and i find that my impression changes radically depending on situation and mood. that's true of most music, but few ostensibly pop artists ever produce anything so difficult to slot into functional expectation. in what circumstance are we supposed to listen? how are we supposed to feel? you have to work out for yourself how to use it.

is transcendence a good thing?

xpost

I am not sure I would have called The Knife pop artists even at their most "Heartbeats"-iest

like morally? i guess there's a case to make that anything that resists capitalism is inherently good but tbh it depends on what you're looking for in music.xp

the question is whether this album resists politics/capitalism successfully or just referents its own political context and i'm not sure it does that.

This is an incoherent statement; are you not sure it resists politics/capitalism successfully or are you not sure it just referents its own political context? Also, why are you equating "politics" with "capitalism"?

"pop" in the pazz and jop sense, big tent

And why would it need to resist politics? It can't!

i'm really trying to shift politics into capitalism since 'politics' as a term being used here is meaningless, and i meant that i'm not sure it's successfully resisting capitalism. it's doing lots of great things tho! i love the sound, it reminds me a lot of fever ray which is my fave album by *them* so far and i love her voice and i even like the tonal seriousness and fuck you 19 minute tracks. i just don't see it doing anything interesting on a 'political' level. xxp

The Knife might well be one of the first electronic acts to do something like this, although it seems to be musically and aesthetically aligned with a few other recent albums, particularly Let England Shake, The Seer and maybe Bish Bosch. There's one track that even sounds a bit like footwork on here.

i guess what i mean is that music that is 'political' is just locutionary but illocutionary music actually needs to fight the power

maybe I am totally romanticizing my industrial/industrial dance/acid techno past but I feel like this album would have fit in very well on Nettwerk Records circa 1987/1988, with chunks also comparable to +8 Records circa 1992, so I kind of don't get the "no one has ever done this before" conversation

xp - i don't accept that characterization. art can work towards its political aims in a variety of ways. simply raising an idea is an illocutionary act.

@ DJP specific tracks pls!

xp: I mean, I was never a huge fan of the track but the whole point of Speedy J's "Pullover" is that he spends 5+ minutes shifting the drums every 2 measures, adding things in and dropping them out and changing the rhythm pattern, and I think over the course of the track he repeats maybe 3 patterns? and one time is in direct succession where it's clearly an intentional "I am changing the pattern by not changing the pattern here" decision; it's proto-"Full of Fire" and a lot of Speedy J's 90s tracks are in that realm.

lol I swear I was writing this before FGTI posted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG3Ls1mVyKk