A classic one-two punch in pop is rarely delivered better than this. A first listen to The Knife's new single gives the impression of quirky electropop fare, but on closer inspection a kaleidoscopic door is opened into a rare artistic netherworld.
The Knife's Olaf Dreijer and Karin Andersson are by nature classic alt pop connoisseurs, crafting their songs with awkwardly drifting killer hooks, but it's the ground they're coming from that makes them such a profound curiosity.
Shrouding themselves in mystery that's not limited to their carnevale costumes, the Swedish sibling duo have much to say. When Andersson talks about the existential connotations of their recent LP title, Silent Shout, or using unconventional photoshoots to show what their music, rather than its makers, looks like, it's not with an air of "look at me" intellectuality, but with a genuine feeling you can hear at the back of their songs that forms the darkest shapes.
Like A Pen indeed harks back to the deeper, darker days of Swedish art, particularly the nightmarishly suspenseful yet stylistically irresistible Ingmar Bergman of The Magician and Hour Of The Wolf, encapsulating a certain mood and ambiguity essential to its synth-driven sound. When it comes down to it, this single thrills you inside, possibly because of, and never despite, its ultra-artistic veneer. With a joyless funk and happy existentialism, it'll draw you into its roots like Svankmajer's tree baby.
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