The Knife - Silent Shout: Deluxe Edition

Putting the ‘house’ into arthouse

Slickly packaged succour for those who didn’t make it to The Knife’s highly select tour last year, and a great introduction for benighted souls who remain unfamiliar with their genius. Swedish siblings Olof and Karin Dreijer eschew the clich� of superficial or ironic dance music and their stark yet thrilling techno is a powerful pairing of brutal beats and icy sound washes with complex, soulbaring feminist lyrics.

This set boxes up their towering Silent Shout album with a 5.1 DVD and CD of their Gothenburg show, plus all their videos. The tour, billed as an ‘Audiovisual Experience’ was a collaboration with artist Andreas Nillson, in which the duo appeared behind gauze, dressed in boiler suits and balaclavas, surrounded and obscured by abstract shapes, bizarre animations and disconnected imagery. It’s a disorientating, Exploding Plastic Inevitable-style spectacle, but even more than on record, you’re struck by the emotionality of their work. For all their austerity, Karin can’t restrain herself from dancing a little during the creepy, classy Pass This On and a pounding We Share Our Mother’s Health. A new, more restrained version of Heartbeats (released as a digital single on June 25) cleans away the gloopy sentimentality of Jose Gonzalez’s cover and returns it decisively to its owners. A cut above and no mistake.

Brille | BRILCD 103 DLX

Reviewed by Emily Mackay
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