Spring 2009 - Issue 5

The Silversword: Home > Arts and Entertainment > Music Spotlight: Gorillaz and The Knife

Music Spotlight: Gorillaz and The Knife

Mike Kasper, Editor; Christian Vetter, Photography Editor

The Gorillaz

The Gorillaz, a band comprised of four animated members, are dropping their first album in five years on March 9 in the U.S. Co-created by famous Blur vocalist Damon Albarn and “Tank Girl” comic illustrator Jamie Hewlett, the duo will finally release the band’s third studio album “Plastic Beach,” thereby crushing multiple rumors of their retirement.

The band is in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the Most Successful Virtual Band of all time. They received five Grammy Award nominations in 2006 for their double-platinum album “Demon Days,” winning for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for the single “Feel Good Inc.”

The Gorillaz’s sound fits into a plethora of genres (hip-hop, trip rock and eletronica, to name a few), but ultimately the Gorillaz fit into a league of their own. They span an enormous musical spectrum but always maintain a Stanley Kubrick-ish, dark, apocalyptic underlying tone throughout their work.

“I'm making this one the most pop record I've ever made in many ways, but with all my experience to try and at least present something that has got depth,” said Albarn of “Plastic Beach” in a recent interview with The Guardian.

“Plastic Beach” will feature guest performances by many notable artists including Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, Mos Def, De La Soul and the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music.

The album’s first single, “Stylo,” featuring both Mos Def and Bobby Womack, leaked on Jan. 20 to the Internet masses.

Miles Leonard, president of Parlophone Records, described the new song as "a dark, twisted track that sounds like the 'Saturday Night Fever' soundtrack on MDMA.”

The Gorillaz, performing live concerts through giant projectors and holograms, will be headlining the final night of Coachella Music Festival in Indio, Calif., on Apr. 18. The Mayan predictions for imminent world doom could very potentially come to fruition a couple years early as the Gorillaz rock the house in the Cali twilight.

—Christian Vetter

 

The Knife

Being branded with the “avant-garde” label is frequently a double-edged sword for musicians. While mostly meant in a positive connotation that provides an image of being cutting-edge and having a willingness to explore a new sound, it also portrays a lack of mainstream commercial appeal. That is, a band that will stay true to its aesthetic…all the way to the gutter.

The Knife is a collaboration between the Swedish brother-sister team of Olaf Dreijer and Karin Dreijer-Anderson (a.k.a. Fever Ray) who specialize in a distinct brand of “avant-garde” electro-noise. While they have commonly made fans of critics stateside (especially with their 2006 release “Silent Shout,” which made frequent appearances on various “Best-of-the-2000-decade” lists) the chasm between their work and the collective consciousness is vast. And their demeanor of being anti-media and only appearing in public with face-concealing masks hardly extends their appeal to the mainstream.

 Their closest brush with fame was the result of 2002’s “Heartbeats,” which was acoustically covered and plastered into a few “touching moment” scenes in sappy TV shows (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scrubs,” etc.). It was hardly a career-vaulting moment. And while the natural inclination may be to evolve one’s sound in order to appease the masses (Kings of Leon, etc.), The Knife show in their upcoming release, “Tomorrow, in a Year,” that they have not changed who they are in order to take the Billboard charts by storm. Rather, they have further entrenched themselves in their aesthetic and, if anything, alienate the masses even more by creating an opera about — of all things — Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species.”

Basing an opera on a scientific work about the theory of evolution may seem like an undercooked idea, but The Knife use this album concept to highlight their strengths as a band — one that is not bound by convention.

“Concept albums” generally fall into two distinct categorical summations: compromising dreck, which deems the band’s auditory identity a lower priority than the unification of the album (e.g., Green Day and their “rock operas” in the 2000’s); or a unique presentation that uses the unifying theme solely as a backdrop to present a band’s true sound (e.g., the Beatles’ "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," the Who’s "Tommy"). While one would be hard pressed to argue that “Tomorrow, in a Year” will have the lasting cultural significance of “Sgt. Pepper” or “Tommy,” upon first listen, it is hard to deny the audacity of the Dreijer siblings.

 In the first released single, the 10-minute-epic “Colouring of Pigeons,” The Knife set syncopated vocal harmonies, arias, and their trademark somber voices against a deceptively simple, slow drumbeat. The production is impeccable and the old cliché of a listener “getting lost in the music” has never been easier than it is while listening to this piece.

“Tomorrow, in a Year,” which features Mt. Sims and Planningtorock, presents music for those with flexible tastes and a willingness to explore.

—Mike Kasper