A long time ago (in the Nineties), I discovered a Swedish band called Honey is Cool. They practiced a form of pop that most people probably lumped in with other Swedish bands like Acid House Kings and Starlet. But if you listened closely, Honey is Cool had a sound and an aesthetic that was just a little darker and perhaps a little stranger than many of their contemporaries. After a couple of full lengh releases (1997’s Crazy Love and Early Morning Are you Working? from 1999), singer Karin Dreijer decided to take some time to focus on a new project with her brother, Olof. The project became a priority (as they often do) and the siblings released their first album, Deep Cuts in 2001 and introduced the world to The Knife.
The world didn’t pay a whole lot of attention at first. Deep Cuts didn’t get much distribution in the U.S. and even less airplay. Karin’s sweet, almost Billie Holiday-esque vocals were hard to understand as she sang in heavily-accented English, and set against some of the heaviest and most sinister sounding synths that didn’t make for instant accessiblity. The Knife’s sound was also a far cry from the guitar-based rock of Honey is Cool. I played tracks from the new record frequently on my radio show because I thought the record was outstanding, but I rarely got any inquiries as to who was responsible for these great songs. Which was probably a good thing, because I couldn’t find much information on the internet about them at the time! Then, one night, I was DJ’ing a dance club in downtown L.A. and I decided to drop something from the The Knife. Almost instantly, this tall, lanky fellow came running up to me very excitedly. He had a heavy European accent and his eyebrows bounced around a lot as he demanded, “Is this The Knife? Are you playing The Knife? Nobody knows about The Knife, how do you know The Knife?” We chatted for a bit despite the language barrier, then he ran off to go dance to the band he was obviously very excited about.
Just based on that one conversation, I wasn’t surprised when Silent Shout, the band’s second record, became one of the biggest electronic hits of 2006. Clearly things had been cooking in Europe for the Dreijers, and it was just a matter of time before enthusiasm for their unique sound spread to the States. Deep Cuts was re-released domestically due to the success of it’s follow-up, and I couldn’t help but wonder where all the deaf ears had gone. The song “Heartbeats” was even featured on a recent episode of HBO’s “Entourage.” That blew my mind a little.
In 2003, The Knife composed a terrific soundtrack to a Swedish film called Hannah Med H, which I just recently found out about (hey, they didn’t hire me to review movies). I have yet to track down a copy of the film, but I’m eager to just based on the quality of the songs alone. And I’m looking forward to whatever the Dreijers put out next (they have a record tentatively scheduled for release in 2008), and I’m just glad that more ears are finally listening.
[display_podcast]
If you enjoy these tunes, tune into my radio show on kxlu 88.9fm 10a-2p every monday. we’re also streaming live at www.kxlu.com.
