Really interested to see how this will be review this week. It's only had six reviews on there so far but at the moment it has 89 on Metacritic. Silent Shout only got 74. I love that going through the Silent Shout ratings you get to Q magazine's one star review right at the bottom..
A hideous mess of electro noodling and maddeningly obtuse, tuneless vocals. [May 2006, p.126]
I wonder just what they'll make of this one?
― Kitchen Person, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 22:39 (eleven years ago) link
i like how the last seconds of raging lung segue back into a short drone, seems like it's all pretty planned out and sequenced in a cool way. drone is great!
― ums (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 22:41 (eleven years ago) link
but yeah i think the drone is interesting in itself and also i think makes the album feel different more expansive and better for what it does to the pacing, don't know if that's what u wanted lex but i have positive feelings about it and i'm not some hussy that falls for every drone i meet
― ums (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 22:47 (eleven years ago) link
would like to read an enthusiastic defence of the 19-min drone
If you insist...
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 22:52 (eleven years ago) link
Really getting into A Cherry on Top
― Fetchboy, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 23:10 (eleven years ago) link
would have been a cool april fools day joke if pitchfork had put up the stream yday but it was actually jane's addiction - ritual de lo habitual
― zero dark (s1ocki), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 23:45 (eleven years ago) link
does everyone know that 7. "Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized" 19:22 is not included with the standard CD issue of this album. it is only going to be on the deluxe version for around $10 more and comes with a two CD set.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B9JDBSY/ref=s9_simh_gw_p15_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=04WJ99XAASTT9CAJ3CQS&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938811&pf_rd_i=507846
― Bee OK, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 02:38 (eleven years ago) link
$6.85 isn't really "around $10"
― I am using your worlds, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 02:41 (eleven years ago) link
i was going from memory but $7 was close
― Bee OK, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 02:43 (eleven years ago) link
like I wasn't buying the deluxe version of this album no matter what
― the pheromones of hot clothing (DJP), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 02:48 (eleven years ago) link
Really liked this on first listen to the Pitchfork stream but I couldn't get the 19-min track to play all the way through despite trying several times. I take it no one else had trouble?
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 02:56 (eleven years ago) link
everyone else had trouble because everyone who bought all of the other Knife albums was trying to stream this today
― the pheromones of hot clothing (DJP), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 02:56 (eleven years ago) link
Ha, OK, fair point.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 02:57 (eleven years ago) link
I'm really enjoying “Wrap Your Arms Around Me”. I was going to say that the track sounds sorta-Dead Can Dance-ish, but reading Ned's remark about The Creatures I can totally see that too.
― theskysgoneout (Jason Pitzl-Waters), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 03:23 (eleven years ago) link
― Bee OK
On Amazon.co.uk it's 50p more to get the single disc version, they are charging us more not to own that song.
I was all ready to buy the vinyl version (it does have much better artwork) but think I'll be getting that single disc CD now.
― Kitchen Person, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 03:30 (eleven years ago) link
Andersson is the happy mother of two children and by no means a dark or haunting individual. She is a woman who Skypes with her brother (Olaf now lives in Berlin) and talks freely about her obsession with Miami Vice. In one of the rare instances of emotion, Andersson becomes animated when discussing the hit 80s television show. “I really like watching old Miami Vice,” she confirms as I await some deep musically inspired reason. “It looks so good when it’s warm dark nights and they just go out driving their boats and everything. It looks really nice,” Karin reaffirms with a bit of a chuckle.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 04:13 (eleven years ago) link
Kinda reminds me of Beth Gibbons in interviews, way less fraught than image suggests.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 04:17 (eleven years ago) link
generally speaking, the people who are actually that fraught kill themselves or go crazy
― the pheromones of hot clothing (DJP), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 04:19 (eleven years ago) link
Minor differences.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 04:23 (eleven years ago) link
One of the most impractical pieces of music i know of is a 3-pc 50-minute Guyuto Monk chant that resonates and echoes far more impressively in the silence that follows the end of it's audition. I imagine that "Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized" is an entire album side, and thus (will require a new slab of vinyl, and), should only be continued once the listener can reconcile themselves to a new thought. Five minutes of silence would seem appropriate, but, to each their own.
Reference: The Gyuto Monks: Freedom Chants from the Roof of the World
― bodacious ignoramus, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 04:29 (eleven years ago) link
They should do real songs instead of mindless drones.
― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 07:28 (eleven years ago) link
bloody hipster monks.
After seeing the horror on display everywhere I was surprised to like the drone piece, I like drone generally but even beyond that this seemed narratively interesting in a way that drone often isn't. But I'll have to save my thoughts on how it sits in the album as a whole for when I haven't fallen asleep a couple of tracks after it.
― a similar stunt failed to work with a cow (Merdeyeux), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 07:36 (eleven years ago) link
I don't get the vibe that this isn't a classic-sounding knife album. It's The Knife's general sound decomposed of its pop melodies/elements. The drone piece mirrors/was prefaced by tracks like "The Captain" on Silent Shout, tracks that took awhile to get to the melody/heart of the piece and showed their ability for restraint. This is like that magnified. Moving through the entirety of it is pretty awesome, especially prefaced by the assault of "Crake," and outro-ed with silence, as someone mentioned upthread. And then followed up with a gentle melody and emotional lyrics. It's an experience and a space, not a pop song, as others have noted too. And the third or fourth song is reminiscent of the sounds used on "Kino" in their debut. Distorted voices, brassy sounds, steel drums punctuating the tracks; very The Knife.
― mox twelve, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 08:48 (eleven years ago) link
*Moving through the drone piece
― mox twelve, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 08:49 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah I'm not sure this is as radical a departure from Silent Shout as is being made out, there are a lot of familiar elements in here that have been arranged into more awkward shapes, but it's very defineably a Knife album.
Not going to listen to this again until I can do so on headphones though.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 09:03 (eleven years ago) link
def thought of "the captain" at several points on this
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 09:12 (eleven years ago) link
Everybody will find this cool at a first listening but few will feel like revisiting the 98 minutes of this record again
― Shin Oliva Suzuki, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 13:29 (eleven years ago) link
Hmm. Does that make me one of the few, then?
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 13:36 (eleven years ago) link
I really liked about a third of this and was underwhelmed by the rest but I can tell it'll be a grower
― I am using your worlds, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 13:37 (eleven years ago) link
Ha, since Tomorrow in a Year is the only other Knife album I own, this actually seems like a step back in comparison.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 14:08 (eleven years ago) link
I like the atmosphere of this album and I don't have problems with long tracks. But I don't see strong hooks there.
― Shin Oliva Suzuki, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 14:10 (eleven years ago) link
Her singing sounds a bit like Kim Gordon in some of these new tunes
― Moodles, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 19:44 (eleven years ago) link
Ha! I was thinking the same.
― Fetchboy, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 19:58 (eleven years ago) link
currently loving Stay Out Here, feels a lot like a Chris & Cosey track circa Trance
― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 22:18 (eleven years ago) link
surprisingly great record for a long run.
― illegalblues, Thursday, 4 April 2013 17:43 (eleven years ago) link
the association with Jane's Addiction makes the album title annoying
― nostormo, Thursday, 4 April 2013 19:50 (eleven years ago) link
apparently there'll be a rough trade bonus cd with remixes from pursuit grooves, rroxymore and COOLY G omggggg
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Thursday, 4 April 2013 19:58 (eleven years ago) link
rroxymore released this pretty good single on dfa last year
http://soundcloud.com/dfa-records/rroxymore-wheel-of-fortune
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Thursday, 4 April 2013 19:59 (eleven years ago) link
Listening for the first time away from a 128kbps stream and OOFT. So much better. That extra level of dynamics really ups the listenability.My Coil reference earlier seems pretty spot on. "Old Dreams Waiting To Be Realised" is basically "Queen of the Circulating Library" without the kitsch voiceover.
― Oblique Strategies, Thursday, 4 April 2013 20:17 (eleven years ago) link
Not so much a dream collaboration of Bjork, Dead Can Dance, and Coil as their collaborative mixtape.
― Me So Hormetic (Sanpaku), Thursday, 4 April 2013 20:21 (eleven years ago) link
I'm predicting Pitchfork gives this 8.7
― crowhurst, Friday, 5 April 2013 10:38 (eleven years ago) link
Guardian gives it three stars. Lucky to get that really, from what I've heard.
― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Friday, 5 April 2013 10:43 (eleven years ago) link
https://soundcloud.com/dazedandconfused/the-knife-a-tooth-for-an-eye
^ Cooly G remix
― I am using your worlds, Friday, 5 April 2013 12:08 (eleven years ago) link
WTF was up with all that "we did a lot of research about gender politics" line in interviews? How does that manifest itself?
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 5 April 2013 12:51 (eleven years ago) link
that remix is great
i like the way cooly's line of thinking appears to have been "first i'm going to change the beat, then i'm going to change everything else about the song"
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Friday, 5 April 2013 12:53 (eleven years ago) link
Three acts I wouldn't mind never hearing again in my life.
― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Friday, 5 April 2013 12:59 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.spin.com/articles/the-knife-shaking-the-habitual-interview
― 乒乓, Friday, 5 April 2013 15:24 (eleven years ago) link
these folks are so rad
― relentless technosexuality (DJP), Friday, 5 April 2013 15:44 (eleven years ago) link
The album's "Old Dreams" creates a strong contrast with the more rhythmic material on the album. It's long, it's quiet, you need to turn up the volume for it — it's really the opposite of the way people listen to music on YouTube and their phones.
no disrespect to Phil but you know, I don't see how occasionally using my phone or YouTube suddenly mean I don't have a volume dial or a brain.
― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Friday, 5 April 2013 15:57 (eleven years ago) link
well you dont
― 乒乓, Friday, 5 April 2013 15:59 (eleven years ago) link