the kniφe - shaking the habitual

what do you think of the 19 minute track?

it happened and it was vaguely spooky at one point and i am fairly sure i'm not going to listen to it again

does the album bear much relation to tomorrow in a year?

no idea, can't remember what TIAY sounded like

This is the first album from an established band that I can remember in... forever where I have genuinely no idea what it's going to sound like in its entirety.

Pre-ordered the vinyl the day it was announced. Today I got this email:

Dear The Knife Fan,
 
Thank you for your recent purchase of the Shaking the Habitual Vinyl.
 
Unfortunately, due to an unforeseen production delay the date of dispatch for all pre-orders of this item has now been delayed. We have been advised that the shipping date for this vinyl is now the week commencing the 22nd April 2013. We will be in touch again as soon as your order has left the warehouse.
 
We would like to thank you in advance for your co-operation and patience with us and we are sure the record will prove worth the wait.
 
Kindest regards,
 
Sandbag Ltd

:'( but I think my purchase included the digital version, which should be available on the 8th/9th.

Not sure I can deal with the hassle of double vinyl. I'll probably stick to CD

Triple vinyl. And at 180 grams each, it's over a pound of The Knife!

what do you think of the 19 minute track?

Not a highlight, imo. TIAY-style ambient, but less dramatic. Disappointed in that one, as I envisioned something much more ambitious.

I really want this to leak or for it to be available to stream. I'm so tempted to preorder the vinyl but I just can't be sure I'm going to love it enough to justify spending that much. I like the singles so far but a nineteen minute ambient drone track does not tempt me at all. I just could not get into Tomorrow in a Year at all and like others have mentioned on here it seems like it might be more of a follow up to that.

also i couldn't be bov'd to get into it on the other thread but those "LOL MIND BLOWN" snark posts about the things they've been saying were an ilm nadir for real

How? I'd like people to express themselves in ways that actually capture imagination or provoke original thought/debate.

let's just say i don't consider that pull quote either trite or wrong or obvious, and i do think it's something that still needs to be said, along with all the non-musical points about privilege the band are making at the moment, because even if you're totally, like, ovah it, this stuff is still endemic

fair enough, tbh it's more the paper i'd be irked with for sensationalising dissent. i haven't read interviews beyond that one.

putting a pull quote on the cover isn't really sensationalising it, is it, it's in keeping with several guide covers i've seen

quite nice that it is there though, that way it gets in the brains of people who don't have an active interest in the knife or even music and who might not read the actual interview

Which other thread, and which article? The Sam Richards piece from a week ago?

Streaming over on Pitchfork

http://pitchfork.com/advance/62-shaking-the-habitual/

listening the shit out of this thing right now and enjoying it hugely

sounds like burning man

D:

: (

I love how much some of this is going to annoy people. Already seeing people on facebook saying 'I COULDN'T MAKE IT THROUGH THE 20 MINUTE TRACK AND TURNED IT OFF OMG'

it's pretty intense.

intense like a nightclub in the movie "the crow"

So it sounds like Medicine?

wishing this song would end, pt 3

sigh already tired of how ~divisive~ this will be

i think the high points are quite astonishingly high, and also the 20-minute drone is useless, as is the 10-minute fracking one, and whatever the other drone one was

'Wrap Your Arms Around Me' sounds a lot like Dead Can Dance! enjoying this so far

"Networking" is immense but v much like an Oni Ayhun track.

They've sort of made a techno version of the last couple of Scott Walker records. Probably why I like it so much.

what I might like most about this is how it stops people using the lazy description "this sounds like the Knife" for EVERYTHING

until everything starts sounding like this

this is pretty wack

Might sound crazy but this sure as hell feels like a new Creatures album, and I mean that with full approval. Now that Siouxsie and Budgie are pretty well split on all levels, this doesn't so much take its place as stakes out its own particular space. Anyway, this is great stuff.

Given they're not actually that good at ambient/drone, I'm not sure we really need 35mins or so of it here. The rest I'm still getting my head around.

I'm enjoying said drone...but I would.

I like the drone too. The long one sounds like Chatham's Two Gongs.

loving the drums on this. the ambient tracks aren't bad, but drag a little. all in all, they create a great atmosphere for the record, though.

"without you my life would be boring", "wrap your arms around me", "stay out here" and "ready to lose" are stunning imo

It will have to be a banner year for this not to make my best of 2013 list.

Third full listen and this is a phenomenal piece of work. Can't wait to spend some time with this on headphones. It's moved the goalposts so far ahead of everyone that copied them over the past few years. And fortunately for me even further into the dark foreboding territory that I am a total sucker for.

would like to read an enthusiastic defence of the 19-min drone

It sets the stage for "Raging Lung" really well

you can't kill that many civilians in just 19 minutes

actually "fracking fluid injection" might be more indefensible

i mean, i guess it sounds like fracking might? well done?

Old Dreams would be totally fine if it was no longer than five minutes long. It kind of reminds me of the Chromatics album which has a great start but then half way through is just killed by those boring instrumental tracks. Like that album I think this would be just brilliant if it was edited down.

Agree with Lex that Without you my life would be boring and Wrap your arms around me are amazing.

can someone make a gif of sunglasses falling onto an unmanned drone & then it says "drone with it"

I believe "Old Dreams Waiting to be Realized" could easily supplant some of the soundtrack currently used near the end 2001: A Space Odyssey, particularly, the Star Gate sequence.

My defense of the drone is simple. It places the band in a context of "the Coil that mainstream music press talk about" instead of "the M83 that make you uncomofortable" and I like Coil a fuck of a lot more than M83.
It basically guarantees you can't approach this as a pop record. Forces you to evaluate what they're doing by a different set of yardsticks.

oh so it's not to do with the music then

i'm into the drone now

it's a nice lil drone

there are little things that happen, noises and chittering and stuff
it's a nice quality drone so far

I was warned about the wed show so I showed up extra early to the thur show and stood on the balcony just behind the light people with a counter in front of me and the throngs behind.

Okay, from that description there is every possibility I was like five feet away from you at that show

New:

Europa Europa and The Knife -- För alla namn vi inte får använda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jMXZBPW-Q0

so Katherine St. Asaph reviewed Shaken-Up Versions for Pitchfork and got a rating of 7.3 yesterday. the thing is i looked it up to see if i can buy the CD version of this and according to Amazon this is MP3 only?

here is her review: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19465-the-knife-shaken-up-versions/

It's on spotify. I listened to it in the car the other day and really liked it. It's a nice combination of the clattering intensity of Shaking The Habitual and the tighter, catchier vibe of their earlier stuff.

katherine describes the album as "remixes" three times - are they actually remixes, not re-recordings?

I don't think they completely re-recorded them from scratch, but there are definitely a lot of new-sounding elements. Don't know if that counts as a remix or not.

https://www.crowdsurge.com/store/index.php?storeid=947

got my ticket for London. Almost an anticlimax to get it first time with no hitches along the way, I was prepared to again spend hours on crashing websites.

nobody cares this time around?

Sold out now, but I got one late yesterday afternoon, so i think yeah, they shook off a lot of people with the last London shows.

Finding Shaken-up really addictive, Got 2 Let U especially.

katherine describes the album as "remixes" three times - are they actually remixes, not re-recordings?

― rage against martin sheen (sic), Tuesday, June 24, 2014 12:47 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

vocals might have been re-recorded, it is basically The Tour: The Album

any news on when the vinyl issue of this will be coming? been listening to it a lot on Spotify but this is an album that needs to live on my shelf.

Our LAST tour? Not the final tour, I guess?

We are doing our last tour!
In the autumn we will round up the Shaking The Habitual Show Tour with a number of European dates. After the touring last year we reworked the show during the winter. The performers, previously known as dancers, learnt how to sing and play instruments, the stage got three levels, Shannon Funchess joined us and the show became more fun and shiny. We performed it in the US in the spring and now we would love you to join us in our dance for some last shaking moves.
 
"A handfull elf pee
That’s my soul
Spray it allover
Fill the bowl
Legs astride
An axe to grind
Generous actions with the speed of light
Without you my life would be boring”
See you on the dance floor...
/Olof and Karin, The Knife
 
Shaking The Habitual Show Tour Dates:
Oct 31 - Annexet, Stockholm, Sweden - 22/08/14 @ 9AM CET
Nov 01 - Film Studios, Gothenburg, Sweden - 22/08/14 @ 9AM CET
Nov 03 - Arena, Berlin, Germany - Buy Tickets
Nov 05 - Academy, Manchester, UK - Buy Tickets
Nov 06 - Brixton Academy, London, UK - Buy Tickets
Nov 08 - Iceland Airwaves Festival, Reykjavík - Buy Tickets

Only got this today, a month after Merdeyeux found out... weird. Maybe those dates weren't official yet?

They're breaking up after the tour.

just saw this, kinda sucks, but I guess it's good to go out on a high note

does this mean there will be more Fever Ray albums?

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/21359/1/the-knife-are-no-more-read-their-last-interview

this is a bummer but i've got faith that karin dreijer andersson is going to do something amazing next

as a tribute, here's a free download of a chiptunes cover album from 2010 : http://dataairlines.bandcamp.com/album/the-knife-data013

Oh, I am sad that they are no more. But I do feel like both of them are going to come out with more fantastic work, so I'm not that sad.

I hope they reunite for Coachella.

Yeah I'm not really going to read too much into this "break up", considering it's on good terms and there was such a long interval between Silent Shout and Shaking the Habitual. I'd be surprised if they never made any music together again.

Yeah I am not surprised at all with them ending the Knife, which seems to be a better way to describe than a 'break up'.

Pretty cool that their last show will be in Iceland.

bummed as they are so great together. still we might still have Fever Ray, so not all is lost.

Not as The Knife: https://vooruit.be/en/show/detail/9505/Ful_The_Knife

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jMXZBPW-Q0

I immediately like this more than everything on TIAD + STH

more news - http://d-e-f.com/2015/01/23/def-2015-knife/

Seems weird they're doing just one Europa Europa show, keeping my fingers crossed for some additional dates...

This turned ten years old a few weeks ago

!

Right? It's still a recent album to me. Although maybe the time is demarcated by how pivotal it felt at the time compared to how little I think about it or want to play it these days.
Maybe it's to do with the album's topics now having become much more mainstream and centre-table than at the time? Although I can't remember a time when financial equality and gender rights weren't big topics?

feels like 10 years ago tbh

these two posts above sum things up pretty well imo

Favourite album of the last ten years (plus a few weeks)