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#10
words: Jamie Milton
illustration: Stevie-Marie Terry
The Knife – We Share Our Mother’s Health
Most critical commentators will look back on The Knife’s action this decade fondly – their unique, haunting applying of synthetics completely spoils tradition and ‘Silent Shout’, their latest release as a Swedish duo, exemplified the wonderful progression that somehow occurred within the two over the decade. Their peak in popularity appeared through ‘Heartbeats’, a song, once covered by acoustic-sweetheart and fellow Swede Jose Gonzalez, managed to surge the band into more recognition. But the following release, ‘Silent Shout’, was unlike any other electronic album released this year. Coherently terrifying, a journey like no other.
And it would have been easy to simply pit for a lucky dip in choosing one of ‘Silent Shout’’s assets for one of the songs of the decade. But it seemed only fair to pick the centerpiece: ‘We Share Our Mother’s Health’, a contrastingly streamlined piece of edgy dance music, maintaining the ghostly dramatics of the rest of the record but upping the anti with a twisted, get-up-and-dance attitude.
It’s the opening twenty seconds that first wows the listener: The first time you come across them, you’re blown completely to the side. Synths whimper, sob for seconds before a glass-like melody enters completely unexpectedly, unleashing a clean-cut, fast-paced beat – and we’re away. That’s the moment you fall for ‘We Share Our Mother’s Health’, and the rest of the record, as it happens.
mp3: The Knife – We Share Our Mother’s Health
INTRODUCING: Kap Bambino
words: Jamie Milton
“The CC that should’ve been!” declares one commenter on Kap Bambino’s last.fm shoutbox. Those are 5 effective and casual words to perfectly describe the French act’s music and exactly the reasons why you should be getting a little hot under that collar of yours. Lyrics may be scribed in the darling French language but you expect them to just be a load of slang spat out over the thumping beats.
Their latest release, ‘Intimacy’ even features the Gameboy-”stolen” samples that Crystal Castles used, or at least it’s something of some similarity. Whether they’re aware of the Canadian two-piece or not probably needn’t be asked, but these guys are making ground on one of the 2008’s most talked about acts, already.
The buzz seemed to have emerged months ago for Bordeaux duo and love couple, Orion Bouvier provides the background music for Caroline Martial to go crazy on and their frantically fused sound hasn’t escaped the big cities (New York, Paris, Athens) that they’ve targeted for their touring duties. Clearly, they’ve a good bit to spend and they’re casually spreading the word.
So, the sound. It could be suitable for a Japanese game show (see ‘Save) and it most certainly wouldn’t be suitable for a family dinner. But they achieve this same sort of in-your-face yet enjoyable sound that Ethan Kath has tried and tested, to success. It seems perhaps rude to constantly compare the two but if someone asks “what do Kap Bambino sound like?”, to save yourself the trouble of thinking, just say “a bit like Crystal Castles”. A more detailed description would involve describing their high-tempo, high-pitched, jaunty reveberation shaped by some expensive gadgets and a laptop.
With their own label, WWILKO and their own side-projets (Grouvier=GroupGris, Martial -Khima France), they’ve already set enough footsteps to be able to make their mark without Kap Bambino but this relationship of theirs is about to get a whole lot more exciting.
PLAY: Kap Bambino – New Breath
MFM @ HYPEM
