The knife: a dark trip down the rabbit hole


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After leaving her mark on 2009 as Fever Ray, Karin Dreijer Andersson has returned to making music with her brother Olof, thus ending the short-lived hiatus of their electronica project The


Knife. Released early this year, the mysterious Swedes' remarkably ambitious _Tomorrow, In a Year_ is a 92-minute opera inspired by Charles Darwin's _On the Origin of Species_. The


set also finds them taking on two Berlin-based collaborators, Mt. Sims and Planningtorock. The 11-minute "Colouring of Pigeons" takes The Knife's experimental, cerebral side


to new heights. Drums dance from one channel to another in an impressive display of panoramic mixing, while Planningtorock's operatic vocals help wrap the instrumentation in a cloak of


surrealism. Meanwhile, Andersson's deadpan vocals make eerie references to animals before closing with the refrain, "The delight of once again being home." As the words slink


away, so does everything else, leaving the drums behind to indulge in some heady improvisations. After rambling on for more than 10 minutes, "Colouring of Pigeons" ends abruptly on


a harsh, string-driven death rattle -- an appropriate end to a dark trip down the rabbit hole. Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.