The Knife - Shaking the Habitual

Hello everyone! I am sorry that it has been a while, but I hung myself up on this review because I found this album very hard to approach.  This shouldn't be a surprise for anyone familiar with the Knife's work in general, or with this album in particular.  They have always had a shadowy and evil character to their electro pop, but as they produce more albums they seem to fade even further into the abyss.

The last studio album from the Knife was 2006's Silent Shout.  Since then, the group has produced Karin Dreijer Andersson's sullen and haunting solo project Fever Ray, and an obtuse Avant-garde opera about the life of Charles Darwin, titled Tomorrow in a Year.  I wouldn't recommend the latter of these two, unless you feel like being confused and horrified for 90 minutes straight.  However, it does help to be aware of it, in order to understand the more acoustic and experimental direction they followed from that point to their new album Shaking the Habitual.  They experiment with the same instruments on both albums, but this time they have actually mastered them, rather than just experimenting wildly.

The Knife could find a way to play a mean mayonnaise. 

This new work is still heavily experimental, but the structure is much more fluid, and feels more organic than Tomorrow in a Year.  However, Just because it flows well, don't think it's going to be a relaxing listen.  When the Knife says they are Shaking the Habitual, they clearly mean it.

Because of its name, I was expecting something more pointed and political.  Instead I received an amorphous, impenetrable blob of primordial ooze.  This fact alone would annoy me more if the cathartic experimentation wasn't the message in and of itself.  I think this decision goes hand in hand with the acoustic direction.  It almost feels like a regression through time, back to humanity's infancy.  There is less structure, and less electronics, and instead more unpredictability, and more emotional indulgence.

You want a nine minute, ambient, brainmelter with synths deep enough to hide the lochness monster in? and with only four lyrics about eating coffee and cake for lunch? Bam! "Cherry on Top," how about 20 minutes of tense, dissonant groaning created by recording noise in a boiler room with sputtering percussion that builds to nowhere? No? TOO BAD! "Old Dreams Waiting to be Realized!"

Shaking the Habitual is profound in its commitment to unbridled emotional expression.  The Knife doesn't shy away from a feeling or a thought until it has fully run its course, whether it takes 20 minutes or 37 seconds. Despite the huge variation in song lengths and styles, It is consistently dark, bold, and unapologetically ferocious.  These songs are so seriously far off the deep end; they could have been written by Cthulhu himself.  They do have their more accessible moments though.

Because Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn would be such a good chorus...

Like the single, "A Tooth for an Eye."  It has all the characteristics of a great Knife song: a steady build, intricate percussion, and disturbing vocal manipulations underwritten by a challenge of gender roles (which they expressed nicely in the music video).  This song and the other pagan dance ritual, "Without You My Life Would be Boring," are definitely the high points on the album for me.  They have a determined, satanic energy that makes me want to run until my lungs cave in, or scream till I start coughing up blood.

The second track "Full of Fire," is also a pounding, percussive, tour de force with some really devastating drum rolls, but I seriously hate the vocal delivery.  Despite its different manipulations, it remains displeasing to me in a way that isn't bold enough to make me more than mildly uncomfortable.  In fact, if I had to pick one thing I really didn't like about Shaking the Habitual, it would be the singing in general.  Usually, the Knife's strange vocals are blended seamlessly with their malevolent synthesizers, but their move to this more acoustic sound leaves the vocals sounding out of place in the beginnings of "Raging Lung," "Full of Fire," and "Ready to Lose."  They are eventually blended together, but the moments where they appear on their own are glaringly lacklustre.

At the end of this thing, and after reading the insane manifesto the Knife produced to describe it; I feel this album defies being rated on a traditional scale.  If someone were to give it a bad rating rating for being an inaccessible, shadowy behemoth without structure, catchy lyrics, or any semblance of comfort anywhere in it, then they would merely be confirming its existence as something disturbingly outside the ordinary.  It is long and disquieting and it may burn you out before it finishes, but this nightmare deserves your time and effort.  It will remind you that the strange, the beautiful, and the horrifying are not always separate when we encounter them within ourselves or hidden within the depths of the world.  By presenting them wholesale, and not parsing them down or separating them the Knife has created something truly disturbing and intensely thought provoking.  My god that was long.

Discussion!

• Honestly, the one thing I am curious about with this album is how other people experienced it.  Could you listen to the whole thing? Did it make you uncomfortable? Did it inspire you to think or did it just confuse you?

I really want to engage with people about this album, rather than just adding my review to the pile of positive reviews that already exist for it.  Please let me know in the comments.

Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience

I never thought I would actually look forward to reviewing a Justin Timberlake album. I still find it hard to push out of my mind that NSYNC was a thing.  The boy band era is  long over now, and Justin Timberlake has clearly come into his own as an artist since then.

However, the 20/20 Experience is not something completely new or estranged from its roots in early 2000's pop music.  Every now and again you do actually hear the same quiet aside "Take em to the bridge" from "Sexyback" on Futuresex/Lovesounds, but it is cohesive and spectacular in its own way. Plus who really get tired of 2000's pop music.  Like a finely crafted suit; even after many wears it will still impress. 

In many ways, this album rejoices in its predictability. To me, It basically begs the question: if something isn't original, but is still executed with expert precision, is there anything wrong with that? Like when JT takes the love/drug cliche in "Pusher Love" and plays it out for 8 minutes until it basically implodes, or the song "That Girl" with its crisp 70's, soul style, brass. Yes we have heard these themes many times before, but that doesn't make them less true, or less appealing to me. The 20/20 Experience serves as a reminder of why we love these old tropes: they are simple and they are beautiful.

Plus we have all had enough surprises from JT in the past.

A sense of familiarity also manifests itself in the song lengths.  Most of them clock in around 7-8 minutes, which is a gutsy move, but he pulls it off with smooth transitions, catchy hooks, and glitzy instrumentation.  He is much more comfortable here than on Futuresex/Lovesounds, where I found that most of the songs became stale far before they ended. These tracks are long enough that you could easily memorize the choruses on one listen, which means that if each song didn't have strong, catchy lyrics, this album would have fallen flat on its face...hard.  At least it wouldn't have broken its glasses!..hah 20/20 vision.

That being said, its not like the beats can't stand on their own. They are spectacular and grandiose, and they borrow from many different worlds of music. The track "Don't Hold the Wall" has a very salsa inspired drum beat. The muted arpeggio in the song "Tunnel Vision" sounds like something Flying Lotus could have produced. The backwards strings in the song "Blue Ocean Floor" are just sublime, and set against JT's silky voice, the whole effect is otherworldly.  However, as I listen to this album more and more, I honestly wonder where the 20/20 Experience will get played.  It's not high energy enough for a club, and its consistently too long for the radio.  I normally wouldn't ask this question, but since it's a pop album, I feel compelled to.  The songs are unquestionably meant for dancing, but their control of energy makes me think that only a trained dancer could handle them in a performance; someone like Justin Timberlake.  Which I think really validates the album's name.  Is is an experience, like some gargantuan piece of musical theater.

And I have always wanted to hear more from The Pusher

Once Justin Timberlake sticks into a groove he doesn't let go of it.  He gives each song its own time to run its course.  It is a testament to his self confidence and it also serves as a metaphor for the love and commitment that he praises constantly.  Because above all, this album is about love, not the "Hey I just bought you the on-special highball, so let's we go fuck in a dark corner of the club" kind of love that most pop stars relish, rather the "Hey I taped Grey's Anatomy for you so we can watch it while i give you a foot massage" love. That classic stuff.

Discussion!

• Are the lyrics too bogged down in cliche to carry deeper meaning for you?
• Can you dig into the song lengths? or do you find them becoming boring?
• Does Justin Timberlake's past identity as a boy band member make it hard for you to take him seriously as an artist?

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think.