The Knife
Silent Shout

THE REVIEW

I feel an incredibly happy sensation when I decide to buy a CD hoping it will satisfy me, and I discover that it is actually ten times better than I expected. Silent Shout is an example of this.

If you are looking for something related to the new rock movement (Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, and the like), or if you want to soothe your sorrows with sweet love songs, you have to look elsewhere. Because here you will find only pure and ancient electronic music, from that of Kraftwerk, passing through the Moloko of Statues, to the kind that accompanied the video games of the '80s. (“Machine music is good!” they assert).
Catchy melodies are indeed few, but what makes them superb is the beautiful voice of the singer, whose Swedish accent gives it a very special charm. She is Karin Dreijer Andersson (already the performer of What Else Is There? by Royksöpp), while the other occasional singer is her brother Olof Dreijer.
This duo was born in Stockholm in 1999, a year in which their enterprise and their being outside the market logic led them to establish their own record label, Rabid Records (which is also releasing Jenny Wilson). They do nothing halfway, and they do nothing twice. Compromise is their enemy, repetition is wrong.

Their CD is very instrumental, with large non-vocal introductions for most of the songs, which sometimes makes them long. They range from the slower ones, with deep and intense voices, to the more rhythmic ones, reminiscent of the strobe lights of the disco, traveling from Chinese atmospheres to a capella choirs, but in any case, it is impossible to stop the body from moving to the rhythm. The lyrics are cryptic and the voices often distorted, computerized, synthesized; the album is eclectic, bursting with energy, almost aggressive but not arrogant.
Certainly particular, egocentric, disconcerting, surrealist, strange, just like the two Swedish siblings: they very much enjoy staying hidden and spending periods in magnificent isolation. They love videos because they are considered an extension of their music (which led them to make the short film When I Found The Knife), but they hate doing photo shoots because they say they have nothing to do with music, but when they are forced to pose, they do so by disguising themselves as what they think their works would be if they had a defined image. So one time we find them as gymnasts and the next as crows with beaks, coats, and black wigs. In fact, they describe their music as occult and dark but at the same time fun. And I could not describe it with more appropriate words…

The singles taken from the album are Silent Shout and Marble House, the most beautiful but above all the most "commercial" songs, if you can say so. The title of the first indicates the classic nightmare where you want to scream something, but no sound comes out of your mouth ("Yes in a dream all my teeth fell out / A cracked smile and a silent shout"), while the second song talks about someone who dedicates themselves to anything, just to have something to pass the time. In general, the album is about looking for something to pass the time, but also to avoid loneliness.

From a musical point of view, however, it is based on the invention of new sounds, on the discovery of new synthesizers that produce fragility and sensitivity in a changing way during their reproduction but at the same time give the idea of strength. In short, music that is sad, cold, and dark, but at the same time hard, evocative, and beautiful.