Number 1 of 2006 — The Knife: Silent Shout

When my favourite techno act Orbital disbanded in 2004, I struggled to find another band that meant as much to me. What’s odd is not that Orbital were two brothers, Paul and Phil Hartnoll, but their replacement in my techno pantheon are also siblings. Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olaf Dreijer formed The Knife in 1999 and release albums on their own record label Rabid Records.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with The Knife, you may already have heard one of their tracks. José González’s acoustic cover of Heartbeats was featured in Sony’s ‘Balls’ advertisement. The arpeggio style of the original is repeated in lead track Silent Shout, which prolongs the trancey feeling before The Knife’s trademark vocal style is introduced. The vocals are treated: pitch-shifted, distorted and excited to become almost androgynous. Karin and Olaf share vocal duties (I think), ranging from growling soul to oriental balladry. The combination of these vocals and lyrics generate an isolated but haunted landscape which is visually evocative. The standout lyric of this song ‘a cracked smile and a silent shout’ is the central tenet of the album, in which compassion and love are inextricably linked: confused, sometimes nightmarish and daunting. Later We Share Our Mother’s Health [video] provides the most dancefloor oriented track on the album, but that title and the song’s queasy electronica serve as the base for a thrilling anthemic duet.

Marble House [video] is the standout track, which, if you’ve be paying attention, is the focus of the album. ‘I cut your nails and comb your hair / I carry you down the stairs’, proves this to be the case. This biographical duet, a reflection on dependency, leads to the conclusion that ‘some things I do for money / Some things I do for free’. Karin’s vocals become almost choral and this delivery underwrites that conclusion. It’s simply beautiful.

Still, even within these emotional conflicts, The Knife can continue to astound with trademark comic horror and jaunty house. Neverland is a basic techno road movie, echoing with electronic claps and thumping snare / bass combinations, and Like A Pen bounces, twists and mutates into something a prehistoric Underworld might have produced. These strands of their style combine with echoey trance riffs for Forest Families which splices humour and mystery to decide ‘Music tonight, I just want your music tonight.’ Appropriately this precedes One Hit which deludes itself by throwing any kind of emotional tension out the window, replacing it with cheesy synths and bizarre lower octave vocals, only to underline familial obligations.

However, there is space for more peaceful moments: Na Na Na is a tiny but precious incidental warping Karin’s vocals into a theremin style accompaniment to an elegiac bass. Olaf (and I think Karin too) whisper through the bubbling From Off To On, that drives simple domestic and emotional needs through cartoon humour thus serving to emphasis their criticality to our lives.

The album closes with Still Light, a question, not a statement. A song that abandons the listener too early, deliberately so. A mere snippet of an event full of possibilities, and yes, you’ll wonder what lead up to this. Maybe the clues are in the earlier songs. When asked ‘If this was the last time, now you should tell us what to do,’ how would you answer? Silent Shout is an unanswered cry for help.

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Number 2 of 2006 — Joanna Newsom: Ys

Joanna Newsom’s first album The Milk-Eyed Mender was my startling introduction to her voice, her harp playing and her unique songs – mere snippets of ideas and thoughts turned into pop-oriented nursery rhymes. Ys demonstrates a confident extension of those skills, turning in just five pieces of music that merge the two worlds of song and storytelling, so much that it’s difficult to tell which gets the upper hand. Listeners may find some connection between this album and Kristin Hersh’s set of Appalachian folk-songs Murder, Misery and Then Goodnight.

One-time Beach Boy collaborator and musical polymath (if that’s not an oxymoron) Van Dyke Parks helped to provide decorative orchestral arrangements for the songs, their presence being the most striking difference from Joanna’s first album. When one thinks orchestration in a popular music context, it usually means adding strings. Here, however, we have woodwind, brass and sundry other instruments, but they never overwhelm the songs. Instead, they add rhythmic and tonal colours, stretching and supporting the songs. At times they appear almost foreign, as if their creators heard a completely different set of songs. But as you become familiar with each piece of music, the sometimes quirky arrangements eventually interlock and bind with the songs. This leads to an aching emptiness within the album’s focus (and only solo track) Sawdust and Diamonds, for which Joanna never found an agreeable accompaniment.

Four of the songs are autobiographical allegories, with the fifth, Only Skin, providing reflection on the others. These often lengthy songs require concentration on every nuance of content and delivery. Failure to do so can paint the entire album as a exercise in rambling prog-folk. Opening track Emily hinges around a refrain which describes Joanna’s sister’s attempt to teach her various definitions related to meteors. The time between its two appearances is vast and whilst it’s wordy and cute at first, it turns into a towering display of love and friendship between two sisters when it finally recurs at the close of the song. Appropriately, Emily Newsom provided vocal harmonies to this track.

The lack of obvious choruses helps the album’s narrative, preferring instead to use repeating musical themes on which to hang the lyrics. Joanna’s delivery of these lyrics is less gawky than before, but still unique and enchanting. Indeed, her vocal style suits her music and particularly its rhythms perfectly. This allows the vocals and accompaniments to glide across each other gracefully without unnecessary interference or overwrought dominance, thus helping the listening and understanding each of her elaborate tales, particularly on Monkey and Bear. Once you’re locked into listening to this album it is impossible to break away from because its stories are magical and packed with emotions. Not much more can be written – it’s simply an outstanding album.

I wasn’t born of a whistle, or milked from a thistle at twilight.
No; I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright.
Sawdust and Diamonds