The Knife

To be a fan of the Swedish band The Knife is to be readily worshipful. The Knife is really a brother and sister, Karin Dreijer-Andersson and Olaf Dreijer, who rarely grant interviews or show their faces in photographs yet repeatedly inspire obsessive fans wanting to unravel the mystery of them and what they do. What they had done in the past was create epic, dance-able, electronic beats haunted by Karin’s expressive voice (hearing her voice is a revelation, it sounds so unlike anything else). What they are doing now is releasing a studio recording of a true opus—a 90-minute electro-opera about Darwin’s Origin of the Species, featuring the talents of mezzo-soprano Kristina Wahlin and Berlin-based artists Planningtorock and Mt. Sims, and a world of surprising musical textures and rhythms that mimic nature—all a commissioned work to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s seminal book. It is an innovative investigation into not only the theory of evolution on the scientific scale, but also into what evolution will mean in the digital age or in music, and into how artists might collaborate and comment on one another’s works in new and conscientious ways. The Knife might have an answer with an album that manages to make a potentially cold layered sonic landscape warm and human.