The Knife - Tomorrow, In A Year
An unfathomable mystery, just like the band themselves.
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Part of the appeal of The Knife has always been the air of mystery about them, whether it be through their dense, cryptic music, or their infrequent live performances, which often find the Swedish siblings donning masks while their stage is shrouded in darkness and intentionally disorientating lighting. Both their sound and style are wildly inventive and menacingly futuristic, only adding to their mystique as they've grown in popularity while maintaining their enigmatic evasiveness. For their newest project, Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer enlisted the assistance of English musician Planningtorock and the American DJ/producer Mt. Sims (amongst others) to score an opera about Charles Darwin entitled 'Tomorrow, In A Year'. Heady stuff, to be sure, and while the concept of the project, as well as the talented artists involved, was enough to catch everyone's attention, the finished product comes off as too much pretentious white noise that lacks musicality and enduring melodies, and suffers from not having the visual accompaniment of the opera itself to bring some much needed cohesion to the inscrutable work.
It's a challenging listen right from the get-go, with the barely-there 'Intro' leading into the sonic fragments of 'Epochs,' 'Geology' and 'Upheaved,' which serves as a loose guide to the listener's trek through the slow evolution of the natural world. The angelic vocals of Danish mezzo soprano Kristina Wahlin Momme gives 'Geology' a much needed human presence amongst the synthetic electronic drones, but for the most part the first half of the record will test most listener's patience and resolve. Clearly there are things to celebrate here: mainly the artists daring imagination and their willingness to take a massive creative risk while following their elusive muse. But musically the first two-thirds of the album drags under the weight of its own grandiose ambition, remaining coldly artificial while never revealing any true emotion or heart.
The exasperating high-pitched whine throughout 'Variation Of Birds' makes the song unbearable, no matter the high-minded cultural significance of the subject matter. That pattern continues through the equally tiresome 'Letter To Henslow' and 'Schoal Swarm Orchestra' (which closes out disc one of the 2-disc set), coming across as experimental sound exercises more than songs themselves while sounding too stiff and distant to make any lasting impression.
Things clearly pick up on the sweeping, hymn-like, 'Colouring Of Pigeons,' an 11-minute track that is most akin to the Knife's past output while also seeking a new, boundless panorama of sound and scope. It's a gloriously inventive song, and unquestionably is the highlight of this often impenetrable album. 'Seeds' and the title track build on that creative momentum, but to different effects, with 'Seeds' starting out strongly but the insistent, repetitive bounce of the keyboards grows tedious as the song crawls to a finish, while 'Tomorrow, In A Year' has a menacing, hypnotic edge to it that maintains interest throughout its 12 and a half minutes. 'The Height Of Summer' is a loopy lark, just like a song of that title should be, and its playful exuberance represents what caught our attention about the Knife in the first place. It's a groundbreaking stroke of genius that rewards the listener in a way for making it through the entire record.
The last 40 minutes of 'Tomorrow, In A Year' (comprised of only 5 songs), finds the Knife and their cohorts in fine creative form, crafting captivating, inspiring music that sounds like a door to the future opening. However, the rest of the album is buried underneath the group's own lofty intentions, with sonic experiments often going off the rails without the operas visual complement to complete the story unfolding on the soundtrack. The songs remain distant and cold, and never create the dynamic pulse that the last five songs achieve. So, turn to the last third of the album if you want to hear the icy dance floor detachment familiar to all fans of the Knife, while hearing clues as to where they are planning to take their sound in the future. The rest of the record remains an unfathomable mystery, just like the band themselves.
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