We all got excited when The Knife announced that they were to release a new album this year, then the excitement dampened a little bit when we found out it was just a soundtrack to their Darwin-inspired Opera. Then we thought "fuck it, it's still THE KNIFE" after all and became happy with our lot once again.

Anyway, they made available a free mp3, teased us with a tracklisting (below) and some artwork, but now the good stuff comes - the whole bloody thing, available to stream, entirely for free. It's embedded below. Put on the headphones and enjoy the ambience, my friends.

CD 1:

1. Intro
2. Epochs
3. Geology
4. Upheaved
5. Minerals
6. Ebb Tide Explorer
7. Variation of Birds
8. Letter to Henslow
9. Schoal Swarm Orchestra

CD 2:

1. Annie’s Box
2. Tumult
3. Colouring of Pigeons
4. Seeds
5. Tomorrow in a Year
6. The Height of Summer

The album is a collaboration between The Knife, Mt. Sims and Plannintrorock and, as mentioned above, is a studio version of their Opera of the same name. It will be released properly on March 1, which gives you plenty of time to decide if you want to buy it or not.

Of the opera, Olof Dreijer said:

“At first it was very difficult as we really didn’t know anything about opera. We’d never been to one. I didn’t even know what the word libretto meant. But after some studying, and just getting used to opera’s essence of pretentious and dramatic gestures, I found that there is a lot to learn and play with.

“In fact, our ignorance gave us a positive respectless approach to making opera. It took me about a year to become emotionally moved by an opera singer and now I really do. I really like the basic theatrical values of opera and the easy way it brings forward a narrative. We’ve approached this before in The Knife but never in such a clear way.”