"Tomorrow, in a Year" The Knife

I'm just gonna say it, This album is hard as a dick but far more rewarding than any sexual appendage I've met so far. This is the quintessential album for people who REALLY like music. I warn you now, if you're looking for a follow-up to Silent Shout or the second chapter of Fever Ray then you will be swiftly disappointed. The vast majority of Tomorrow, in a Year is the kind of sound experimentation that we've not heard from the Knife in so blunt a package. The programming and sampling present in this album are, and I won't bandy this word about easily, Revolutionary. Legitimately, after I listened to this album from start to finish I felt as though I'd just heard something colossally important. This music feels important because it expands our definition of opera and electronic music quite dramatically. New opera has not achieved the artistic highs or sonic perfection of classic composition (looking at you Brunderfly) because they try too quickly to imitate an established sound and performance style. The Knife deftly avoided the grand issue of making music 'operatic' by focusing on their own strengths. The Knife has created an operatic experience that not only feels like an opera sounds like the best electronic album possible in the medium. The Knife has vastly exceeded expectations that were already sky-high simply by relying on their established strengths of drama, experimentation and strong composition holding together disparate sounds.
The high point of this album is, without a doubt, Seeds. This nine minute follow-up to Colouring of Pigeons (the single) bases itself on a percussive line that hearkens back to Heartbeats or Pass this On while still showcasing a mezzo-soprano and the ephemeral voice of Mt. Sims. Seeds is great because it builds on the texture of Variation of Birds (track 7), the vocal strength of the mezzo noted throughout the first act but notably in Upheaved (Track4) and Annie's Box (track 10), and it serves as an in-the-face reminder of why Karin Dreijer Anderson stands as one of the best modern composers out there. Seeds is incredibly dense and it showcases that hip-hop possee sound of Colouring of Pigeons while moving to critique opera and electronic music (something I feel the entire album succeeds at). Seeds climaxes with a jarring loop of vocalizations from the mezzo that feels soaring and cramped at the same time. The loop never quite matches up and the harmonies are close but never exact. This is the maddening humor of the entire opera. The piece spends alot of time building and then uses a vocal loop as another sound to stick through the sampler. All the vocal sampling and playing that The Knife has become famous for is safe as a walk in the park when you compare it to the balls it takes for a piece that closes with a clunky vocal line played against another and another. Literally, this feels like a slap in the face to music snobs of a certain pedigree and it feels like electronic music gone slightly awry. It's still beautiful but it's off. By choosing to put the female voice in a looped vocalization she is degraded to just another sound in the track but she is also put forward as an interesting option of how electronic music can evolve. If Bjork can make Medulla withher rapper buddies and some choirs, why can't The Knife make more tracks that have opera singers doing nothing more than vocalizing while someone sings over? I feel that Tomorrow, in a Year is immensely successful at asking smart musical questions and providing interesting, musically evocative scenes through its inherent quirkiness.
Unlike some soundtracks where you can only tangentially pick out a plot this album was never intended to provide a 'plot' to its listener. It was written to convey the emotions and character of evolutionary thought. In that, the opera is vastly successful at conveying dread, hope, fear, destruction, noise, pain and the humyn condition that arsises from it all. The last four tracks of the album are easily the best because they are, immedately, the closest to a typical piece from The Knife. The last four tracks are also strongest because they build on an entire first act of sound experiment and musical build-up. Colouring of Pigeons feels like even more of a gigantic climax after eleven tracks that feel like the kind of musical/mental games electronic artists would probably play all the time if they could convince us to buy albums of nothing but odd drum lines and occassional electronic screeching (OH WAIT I JUST BOUGHT THAT).
I do have to say that this feels like the most mature work by a long shot from any of the artists involved, specifically Mt Sims. After Ultrasex I had mainly written off Mt Sims but now feel that there could be hope after all for the dance act that lucked into the prestige project of the decade. The real work in this opera seems to be done by Olof Anderson. The first act puts the DJ and production skills of the male half of the Knife in the forefront. The second most work is done by the mezzo who is put to the test in every single piece as another sound in the texture of electronic music. The rest of the components all come together when need be and give the listener new surprises with each track. The album feels like a well-lead ensemble piece and its many collaborators ensure that there is never a lack of fresh ideas or thoughts.
I'll say that Tomorrow, in a Year is definitely not for the faint of heart. To add to that, however, I must say that it is the most musically rewarding experience I've had in a long while. This album is a distance from anything I've ever heard before. What Tomorrow, in a Year ultimately succeeds at is establishing its own legitimacy as an electronic foray into the stuffy, mainly static world of classical music. This is a fascinating album and I cannot recommend it enough to music lovers everywhere. For the non-music lovers, why are you reading this blog in the first place?


PS- If that really is Karin Dreijer Anderson singing on the alternate vocal track of Annie's Box then I cannot wait to see what her next project sounds like in light of her still-growing abilities and eccentricities. If the sound of the next The Knife album is put together with the synthy fun of The Height of Summer (track 15) then I really cannot wait to see what happens when siblings reunite and we get a follow-up to my favorite album of the past decade- Silent Shout.