The press leading up to the release of the latest studio album from The Knife has already been heavily marked by the unconventional, and that trend seems to be continuing with the Swedish duo releasing a poetic rant to promote the release of their new record.
Shaking The Habitual is the influential electronic band’s first album in 7 years, first heralded by the release of a 10 minute short film for lead single ‘Full Of Fire’, a gender-bending, art-house movie directed by feminist porn creator Marit Östberg, then came the no-less-conventional sounding (by The Knife’s standards) video/single ‘A Tooth For An Eye’.
Combined, the two lead tracks made up just 14 minutes of the 100 minutes that makes up Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer’s fourth studio album, which is due for an April 8th release through Rabid/Brille/Mute.
Trust the Swedish provocateurs to do something totally left-of-field then for the album’s accompanying press sheet. As Pitchfork reports, The Knife have warped the standard issue press bio that usually comes attached with the release of a new album, and mutated it into their own convoluted version of promotion.
The long-winded rant (which you can read in full below) seems to take the Knife’s album title, Shaking The Habitual, and turn into a free-form essay on art, commercialism, science, life, and ‘manufactured knowledge’ in building an album “about not knowing.”The long-winded rant [is] a free-form essay on art, commercialism, science, life, and ‘manufactured knowledge’ in building an album “about not knowing.”
It could be interpreted as being just a wee bit pretentious, totally obscuring any usual album press details like production credits, singles, track titles – or just where Light Asylum’s Shannon Funchess guest spot appears – but it’s a thoroughly entertaining read none the less.
Shaking The Habitual is the band’s first album of new material since 2006’s Silent Shout, and while the musical siblings have remained busy – with Karin Dreijer Andersson releasing a solo album in 2009 under the pseudonym Fever Ray, and the duo collaborating with Mount Sims and Planningtorock to score an opera based on Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species (yes, you read that correctly) – the April release of the new album marks their fully fledged return to music.
In related albums news, other international artists dropping new releases in 2013 include the disco-influenced album from Parisian duo Daft Punk, the latest from grunge veterans Mudhoney, new material from Brooklyn outfit The National, the latest from Parisian indie popsters Phoenix, the fifth LP from New Yorkers The Strokes, and anticipated releases from the likes of Vampire Weekend and Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Similarly we can see brand new tunes from Australian artists, including a long overdue return from Empire of the Sun, the Cat Empire’s latest, the second album from Melbourne twosome Big Scary, the Russian inspired return of Midnight Juggernauts, and a heap of new albums from the likes of Bernard Fanning, Birds of Tokyo, Hermitude, Airbourne, Super Wild Horses, and a swathe of new material from Perth outfit Pond.
You can view the Knife’s Shaking The Habitual ‘press release’ below, along with the artwork and tracklisting:
SOME FEELING IN THE BELLIES OF THE TANKERS WHO PASS US MAKING SAD MANIC BONGS LIKE DRUMS
Everybody is always desiring already imagined things.
When we travel between thresholds, people say: “you’re hiding.”
Not everything can be so easily explained.We have a bellyache, a big stink, a major grouse or two with manufactured knowledge.
But how do you build an album about not knowing?
Now your voice is in my throat, floating there…
Often people take pills for these things.
To us the body is no longer psychological.
It’s certainly not a container, we don’t believe in metaphors.
Like dog/wolf—there aren’t many anymore.Still at twilight something blurs over your shoulder.
Which is it?
It’s prickly.Our hair is out.
We have made some decisions.
We want to fail more, act without authority.
Plus there’s something phlegmatic about the world state don’t you think?
There’s a blood system promoting biology as destiny.
A series of patriarchies that’s a problem to the Nth degree.
What about hyper-capitalism, this homicidal class system, the school system that’s kaput?
Then there are castles everywhere—look at them fake tanning and signing autographs!At least there’s one thing we stand behind.
There’s still an ecosystem right? And here’s this sound system.
We dusted it off. Electronic is just one place in the body. We went temporarily acoustic.
We made our own instruments. We took an old bedspring, a microphone and:
“Stay out here…”
Now we’re bending our voices to sound like Emily R., who recorded the track on her cellphone speaker.No habits!
There are other ways to do things.Still sometimes it all seems so bad.
Don’t worry we won’t commit Harakiri, stomach cutting or anything like it.
The honor system is corrupt, just another privilege.
Like how it’s a privilege to make an album, to move freely.We just have to go faster we mean breakneck we mean “like crazy.”
How at 5am that warehouse beat is coming up like sour steam.
All over the dance floor we’re asking: can this DNA turn into something else?
It’s not metaphorical. It’s explicit.
There are surgeries and fantasies and holes sweating through the wall.
It’s a question about feelings. It’s a question about who gets to risk.But things don’t change so easily.
There’s still Monsanto, fracking and “terminator seeds.”
Every morning we wake up wondering: who’s kicking who on the street corner?Now we have to start. We choose process over everything else.
Letting go of outcomes is another privilege.
Keep it lateral.
We ask our friends to help.Together we leave the village and walk down the road. The light starts exercising itself. The old sun is out in his winter jumpsuit doing sit-ups and squat thrusts between the nettles and moldy brush.
10 more! We say to him. Get shaking!
Our walk gets longer. It’s a walk in the panpipes of the body. We come to the edge. So much water. The ocean is twice its original size. We take a bunch of surveys.They know everything about us. We don’t buy what they say. We take a heap of estrogen. All around us things are howling and then we stand on the pier end. The light is pink and green and pink and green. It reminds us of home—like we imagine it could be. But when the color pancakes out over the horizon, we don’t know what we’re looking at. That’s ok. This time it’s structural.
No habits!
Of course we’re growing restless.
01 A Tooth for an Eye 6:04
02 Full of Fire 9:17
03 A Cherry on Top 8:43
04 Without You My Life Would Be Boring 5:14
05 Wrap Your Arms Around Me 4:36
06 Crake 0:55
07 Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized 19:22
08 Raging Lung 9:58
09 Networking 6:42
10 Oryx 0:37
11 Stay Out Here 10:42
12 Fracking Fluid Injection 9:54
13 Ready to Lose 4:36
