LISTEN: Tomorrow, In a Year by The Knife (via NPR)

NPR’s streaming The Knife’s new Darwinian electro-opera titled Tomorrow, In a Year. Make sure to take a listen really quickly because NPR will only be streaming until the digital release of the tracks on Feb 2nd. The Knife, however, released one of the tracks “The Colouring of Pigeons” for free download. There’s also much more information located here, including lyrics if you need to confirm that they are really singing about salmon and cocoons.

Tracklist:
CD 1
01. Intro
02. Epochs
03. Geology
04. Upheaved
05. Minerals
06. Ebb Tide Explorer
07. Variation of Birds
08. Letter to Henslow
09. Schoal Swarm Orchestra

CD 2
01. Annie’s Box
02. Tumult 
03. Colouring of Pigeons
04. Seeds
05. Tomorrow in a Year
06. The Height of Summer (*One of my favorites)

Bonus track
07. Annie’s Box (alt. vocal)

DOWNLOAD: “Colouring of Pigeons” by The Knife in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock (zshare)

Oh my god what the random? Here is The Knife’s latest project which I think would be best explained by their official press info:

Commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to write the music for their opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of the Species’, The Knife decided to make this a collaborative process, working with artists Mt. Sims and Planningtorock for the first time, to capture the huge width of the Darwin and evolution theme. They extensively researched Darwin related literature and articles, with Olof attending a field recording workshop in the Amazon to find inspiration and to record sounds.

More info (including a tracklist of the opera and more rather interesting information about the project) can be found here. “Colouring of Pigeons” is a beautiful haunting slow song that runs for 11 minutes. I love the use of hocket in the introduction and the slow drum beat that sort of reminds me of like Tibetan monks or something (um don’t mind me..). Actually can’t wait for the rest of this CD to come out.