The Knife in collaboration w/ Mt. Sims & Planningtorock/ Tomorrow, In A Year

The Knife in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock
Tomorrow, In A Year
(Rabid/Brille)

It may be a dramatic claim to say that on some records you can hear human evolution in action - yet on this album the praise is particularly fitting, since it finds the Swedish electro duo The Knife writing an opera about Charles Darwin’s life and work. A bold undertaking indeed, but one I was pleased to find has been completely successful.
The music here is simply startling, conveying something of the tumultuous events of which it speaks. From the off a dripping noise evokes life’s first primal stirrings (on ‘Intro’) and throughout the album we encounter an appropriate mixture of field recordings and produced sounds; the rumble of a faraway volcano can be heard alongside electronic crackling. It's just like walking through the scenes of a high budget movie.
The music accelerates through time, offering us our first glimpse of a human voice on the female opera of 'Epochs', then speeding forwards: percussion arrives, first as kettledrums, then as Hot Chip style digital beats. By the end of the record, we're reaching the present day.
There's a great deal to summarise here, but it must be said that despite it's epic leanings (and our allegedly short attention spans), ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ manages to capture and sustain the imagination.