As previously reported, this year will see the return of electronic Swedish duo The Knife, with their first studio album since 2006’s The Shout, and they’re coming back with a bold splash.
Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer’s fourth studio album as The Knife, Shaking The Habitual is due for an April 8th release through Rabid/Brille/Mute, and it’s a 13-track, 100-minute long epic, reports Pitchfork.
The heralding single for the record is the equally lengthy ‘Full Of Fire’, ten minutes of skittering, corrosive beats and Andersson’s warped, urgent vocals; delivering writhing mantras like “when you’re full of fire/what’s the object of your desire?”
To accompany the lead single is a music video directed by feminist porn creator Marit Östberg which is essentially an art-house short, with controversial footage and content, such as bondage, urinating old women, and gender-bending. Andersson and Dreijer also make a cameo as a couple visiting an apartment.
Based in Stockholm and Berlin, Östberg’s work focuses on images of queer bodies, transgender sexuality, and feminist rights and politics. The ‘Full Of Fire’ short film is, in the words of the band, “Uncompromisingly current. Uncompromisingly sexy. Uncompromisingly political.”
The filmmaker also issued an accompanying statement with the premiere of the video:
The film ‘Full of Fire’ started to grow as an embryo in the song’s lines ‘Who looks after my story’. Who takes care of our stories when the big history, written by straight rich white men, erase the complexity of human’s lives, desires and conditions?
The film ‘Full of Fire’ consists of a network of fates, fears, cravings, longings, losses, and promises. Fates that at first sight seem isolated from each other, but if we pay attention, we can see that everything essentially moves into each other. Our lives are intertwined and our eyes on each other, our sounds and smells, mean something.
Our actions create reality, we create each other. We are never faceless, not even in the most grey anonymous streets of the city. We will never stop being responsible, being extensions, of one another. We will never stop longing for each other, and for something else.”
The Knife have already used enigmatic footage to tease their first album in seven years before, releasing a short 43-second teaser before the end of last year to announce the news of their latest recording opus. The teaser featured the pair stomping about a playground in high heels, with an eerie and atmospheric soundtrack.
You can view the artwork and tracklisting for Shake The Habitual below.
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
