Colouring of Pigeons

After listening to the song “Colouring of Pigeons” once, I was extremely intrigued of where, when and why it was created. Apparently, The Knife collaborated with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock and produced an album for an opera based on Darwin’s book, On the Origin of the Species. The album is called Tomorrow, In A Year and will be released on March 1st. And if the rest of the album is like this song, I’m really excited for it.

The song starts out with drums that make you feel like you’re lost in a dimly lit forest. Then, opera voices in short tones come in. This is where I thought, “uh, what is going on?” But I got really into it soon after the voices came in; the voices went along to beat of the song really well and I was trapped in it.

There is more information on Tomorrow, In A Year located on The Knife’s website.

In the meanwhile, check out “Colouring of Pigeons”

The Knife – Colouring of Pigeons

Pass this on…

“Hey cuz, wanna produce some remixes?”

John Dahlbäck and Jesper Dahlbäck are cousins from Sweden with similar interests and initials. They have created their own label (Dahlbäck Recordings) and identity (Hugg & Pepp – this name was inspired by nicknames and potential names that the Dahlbäck’s fathers thought of or dreamed for the boys). Both boys are DJs and producers. John bases himself out of London while Jesper prefers to base himself out of his home country.

In this remix, they don’t change the song much which I think is good. They do lessen the amount of mermaid drums in the remix which I like (mermaid drums is a false term I made-up for steel drums). They also speed the song up and add more elating sounds, which make it easier to dance to.

The Knife – Pass This On (John Dahlbäck & Jesper Dahlbäck Remix)

The Knife – Pass this on

The Knife

I was introduced to The Knife a couple of months ago and when I first heard them, I was like, “wtf is this?” I had heard their song, “Heartbeats”, in the club before but ignored the hype it was receiving. I just recently discovered how sweet that song is, and I’ve discovered the rest of their album Deep Cuts which was released in 2003. I can’t stop listening to it. The electronic beats, computerized uni-sexual voices, bizarre lyrics; I can’t get enough of it.
I knew nothing about the creators of this music until about a minute ago. I assumed they were pretty weird but I just discovered how weird they are.

Some weird things about them:

Apparently, they don’t really like playing live shows because they are still trying to figure out how to portray their music in a live performance. They don’t like showing their faces; they wear masks that they believe represent their music (crow people in the north of Sweden or weird monkeys, sure…I guess those could work). They boycott musical awards shows.

Some cool things about them:

They are brother and sister who work mostly together with no one else. They have their own record label called Rabid Records. They sincerely want to portray their music properly hence the reason why they come off so weird; wearing masks, not really performing live, all that stuff in the weird section.

So pretty much, they’re cool. But at the same time, I wish they would lighten up a little and perform live more often. In a way, they’re contradicting themselves because they seem to be taking themselves really seriously but then there’s this video they made…

When I found the Knife

But I guess this video sums up their music very well.

The Knife: Weird, cool, and faceless.

Heartbeats (again)

My last entry of September 2008

September is over? Already?

September seems to have been an unbelievably busy month for everyone. But I’m pretty sure every September of every year is like this. It’s just one of those lovable characteristics September seems to attain.

Songs that kept me going this month:

The Knife – Heartbeats
Dandy Warhols – Sleep (me and my bed’s theme song)
Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space
Klaxons – As Above, So Below (Justice remix)
The Kaiser Chiefs – Never Miss a Beat (Cut Copy remix)

So about “Heartbeats”…
I used to not really like this song but when I was writing a boring research paper, I had an irresistible urge to listen to it. It helped me get through the dreadful paper. And now, I love it.

So I’ve decided; out of all the music I’ve discovered and re-discovered this month, I’m going to say that The Knife’s “Heartbeats” is my September 2008 song because it got me through my first research paper of the semester.

The Knife – Heartbeats