"The Knife" is like the first night I ever discovered Ninja's!

Pass This On by The Knife is the Best Video and Song of 2003! Download: 13.5 Mby

Perhaps it was the mighty Clarence Jarome who said it best: "If you were tied up on a chair in the middle of the gym and they had S1W spotlights all set up around you and your eyelids were pried open, a ninja could walk in front of you and you wouldn’t even see him. You wouldn't even see him!"

I didn't understand it then back in grade eight, but I sure understand it now. What made me recapture the lost chi in my life was the band The Knife from Stockholm. If you need Ninjalics in your life, check them out!

I discovered The Knife via their Pass This On video from their album Deep Cuts (Rabid Records) while in Rovaniemi, Finland on MTV2 on October 9th, 2003. After I saw this video - ask anyone - I was a wreck. The Knife was all I could talk about. As soon as I returned to Canada, I downloaded the video and cranked it until the lady upstairs came knocking on my apartment. I was on Finnish time, I guess, and possessed to dance!

Please download the video for free and witness the Best Video and Song of 2003! It's directed by Johan Renck and will change your life! To download the video, please go to The Knife's official site at: http://www.theknife.net/video/ and look under "downloads." Double Click on Pass This On and erupt in bliss!

Everything about this video is perfect! The setting is perfect. The casting is perfect. There is character transformation and love blossoming before your eyes, and everything here is revealed through the lips of the players. Watch the lips! They betray all emotion and reveal so much of the plot. I love it

Wanna watch it with me? Okay, here's the breakdown:

What we have here is a very beautiful woman getting ready to sing a song, but, upon further examination of the video, we see that it is a beautiful man (Rickard Engfors--the most famous and best drag artist in Sweden!) in a sensual green dress with matching blue pumps. Yayyy! A very gorgeous feline man with high cheek bones, lovely lips and big beautiful eyes. Look at Rickard sway his hips and sweep his golden hair across his shoulders. And what wicked make up! I'm loving the Farah Fawcett hair. "Three's Company" all the way, hey!

Rickard dances around for a bit but the crowd doesn't look amused. That's a pretty Motley looking crew in what looks like the Legion after-hours, I guess. Since The Knife is Swedish, we'll have to assume there's a Legion in Stockholm-or is it talent night in Bulgaria, or what's the deal? One woman (who looks like she's got a little shine on) gets up and visits with her fellow Legionnaires while Rickard dances all alone, a dancing queen with only a dream, while the girl with the bug eyes (played by Karin Dreijer-one half of The Knife and Olof's sister!) reveals what everybody is thinking: "Who is this she-male and what does he think he's doing to our talent night?"

Look at Buddy in the corner. People are smoking. People are drinking. Good times, or no? People are blowing smoke out of their noses with their arms crossed. There's a suit guy there who looks Iranian; he looks a little irate. There's a couple other guys there whose body language looks a bit closed, but Rickard is dancing and he's beautiful and he's gorgeous and he's elegant and he's got those glow in the dark moves and those big earrings and blue eye shadow like the girls back home in grade six!

Oh! Eye contact between her and Buddy in the Blue Leather Jacket. It's Olof Dreijer-the other half of The Knife. And you know it's love at first sight. Nobody told Olof lust could hit so fast or feel so good. And there's a little bit of madness growing. And there's seagulls in a painting in the background (Mis-en-scene of freedom soaring in Olof's blood, hey!) and our dancing queen's caressing the mike like it's the only thing left on earth that matters but there's that girl with the bug eyes in the crowd who's totally kind of revolted but it totally doesn't matter because Rickard is happy and dancing

Oh! Look at the dance between the eyes of Rickard and Olof. It's almost fatal, what they feel, and Olof breaks away from his pal in the white jacket. Buddy in the White Jacket just hates his friend now, hates Olof for approaching Rickard. Oh my God! Look at them. Look at Olof dance for Rickard! Look at Olof's smiling eyes. He is 100 percent alive right now. He just knows he has to do this. He can't hold back. Look at their lips. They' re puckered for each other. And it's a dance between the eyes and Olof starts to cut loose in that sensual wave kind of way like a bird that doesn't want to be tamed but knows he needs to get tamed (He's like Oh I love you for taming me but I hate you for taming me and I'm yours now forever oh I hate you! I hate you!).

Suddenly, the Tennessee sipping whiskey in Buddy in the White Jacket's glass has turned sour. Oh! People now are starting to dance. Olof broke trail for everybody else to cut loose and one guy starts breakdancing and the ceiling and air fans in the room automatically turn to top speed because even they know a powderkeg of passion has just spilled from heaven above to everyone below and there's that guy in the suit with the big nose and even he's captivated.

And they're all dancing! Even the taxidermied birds on the walls know they did not die in vain if there was a night on earth allowed like this! We're kind of born knowing how to dance as babies and Rickard with The Knife's song made it possible to show the crowd how to dance as babies once again!

Buddy in the White Jacket starts to do a zombie shuffle, kind of like a death dance. He knows there's gonna be no tomorrow after a day like today and everybody starts to dance in the basement of this Legion and everybody's smiling. But look! There's like 30 people biting their lips and that's because they're holding back the love they have for each other and the love they have for humanity and everybody's praying that Arafat, Bush and Sharon will download this video and cut loose together.

But the girl with the bug eyes remains unchanged because there's always a part of humanity that's going to hold onto their shee-ot! And this is the greatest Video and Song of 2003. Hands down, baby!

Don't keep it on the hush-hush! Download it for free. Let everybody know! This is the video that can save humanity! It certainly saved me. Nobel Peace Prize for All Time, eh! It makes me dizzy with hunger and it reminds me of the love triangle between me and Caitlin and Joey Jeremiah in "Degrassi Junior High." Please download this video and enjoy!

The beauty of The Knife is you can download three other videos for free from the same site: "NY Hotel" (so lovely and lonely and tragic you'll weep!), "You Take My Breath Away" (so funky-electro you'll dance around with your teddy bears) and "Heartbeats" (So original you'll call your ex and go, "I'm so sorry I was such an asshoooole!")

I was so obsessed with The Knife that I sent Olof and Karin a note saying how much I loved their videos and wondered if they could send me some CD's to review. They did! A huge mahsi cho to them for doing this because 2003 was a tough year, baby, and I needed all the good medicine I could get.

I want to break the three Knife albums down for you now and I really hope you buy them all. Humanity needs to support this incredible band!

Let's start with the first album: The Knife (Rabid Records 2001):
What can I say? It's brilliant. The whole album must be played from start to finish without anyone moving for days. If you like your songs so layered ("Neon") and lonely ("Lasagna", "I just had to die", and "NY Hotel")--listen to the wind of sorrow blow through your heart to this one--and if you want to vanish in front of friends and family and appear years later younger and wiser, then this is the album for you.

There's some jolly tunes in here to help you calm down and maybe call your mom like, "Parade" and "Kino" and some mysterious ones like, "Zapata", "Lung", "Reindeer", and "Bird", (what a lovely love song!), but the song I feel most like a ninja to is "I take time." Man, crank this in a dark room and flail around like a squid under shark attack shooting ink! You're gonna wanna fuck someone like smash-up-derby to this song!

Next up: Deep Cuts (Rabid Records: 2003).

"One night to be confused
one night to speed up truth
we had a promise made
four hands and then away
both under influence
we had divine scent
to know what to say
mind is a razor blade

To call for hands of above to lean on
Wouldn't be good enough for me

One night of magic rush
The start: a simple touch
One night to push and scream
And then relief
Ten days of perfect tunes
The colours red and blue
We had a promise made
We were in love."

These words aren't just lyrics. They are poetry!

Listen to Karin give all she has in "Girl's Night Out." It's a mating call for anyone fast enough to catch her! The synths in these songs are tantric and will give you wings to soar around the room!

Then there's "Pass this On" and it's just heavenly. Again, it's the perfect song: the best of 2003. Go ahead and tango in the bathroom or slide your tongue slowly over a friend to those Jamaican drums! Is it Karin or Olof singing, I wonder? It could be either

"One for you" is a little spooky in its own haunting way. I need to know the story behind this song. Something horrible happened and this is almost like a ghost at the scene wailing away for anyone who'll listen.

"The Cop" is just downright groovy and diabolical at the same time:

It's sung by Olof, but what's the story here? "I am a cop
shut up
I piss in your mouth
I shoot you in the face you motherfucker
Shut up or I'll shoot you
I shoot you right on the spot you motherfucking shit."

Someone dance with me to "Listen now." It's so sexy and fast. I love the lines: "Listen now/ I keep forgetting your name/ When you laid down on the kitchen floor/ it was the happiest moment for a long long time" and I love that parting image: "Listen now/ I was afraid of everything/ then I straightened my head up/ It was the happiest moment for a long long time."

Listen to that disbelief and shock in Olof's voice when he sings "She's having a baby." It's a grief-soaked lullaby. He didn't know he was going to be a father until it was too late. Listen to that last line "Why didn't you tell me?" and let the tears fall.

Up next is one my faves: "You take my breath away." Jenny Wilson provides great backup vocals (and lyrics) in this song and she's got a sexy little groove in the video. What a smile! The song, the tempo, those Jamaican drums again and superb lyrics take this song higher on so many new levels for the band and I love it: "I like vanilla and I like sex/ I ride the pony that I like the best/I knew I knew that there was something I missed/ I was fifteen when I first got kissed/ before I knew about the equality way/ I wanted to get laid to/ ‘You take my breath away.'"

I also love how strong Karin looks in the video. That last shot of hers looking at the camera is classic!

Want some down and dirty with a little pump and grind? Listen to Karin's sultry and husky breath as she croons "Rock Classics." It's a hot breeze of sin on a lonely afternoon: "Here comes another day in isolation/ hold out your hand/feel my brain burns/you suck and lick but you still don't know why/I could fuck your brains out/but I'm not interested in that life."

Next, get up and pump those hips to "Is it Medicine." Don't be afraid to start air humping! It's sexy, baby. I love how Olof joins in and gives just as good as Karin. What a duo! I was never one for hickeys but you can suck my blood as hard as you want to this one!

And just when you thought there couldn't be more comes along the adorable "You make me like charity." I love the voices used in this song. It's like teddy bears alive at night or home alone longing for and running to their five-year-old mommies but I know it's also for adults lonesome for each other.

Along the teddy bear theme that I can't seem to shake at this part of the album when "Got 2 Let U" busts out. Here's another teddy bear dance along that you just have to join in and do figure-eight's with your head to and maybe cast a few devil horns if you want, thumbs out and away from the heart. Again, the synths are magic and kind of like a ping pong game between rainbows if you close your eyes hard enough and crank it.

Oh! Now you gotta get ready to dive under the soil of the earth in "Behind the Bushes." What a phenomenal instrumental. It's kind of a war anthem for an army knowing they're never coming home. The men are marching with their heads hung low and no amount of orders shouted from any of the generals will ever raise them - ever!

"Hanging Out" is just bizarre! Listen if you dare! It's funky, but what's the story!?

If you're starving for more of The Knife, check out the soundtrack they did for the movie Hanna Med H. My greatest fear is that fans will overlook this album thinking, "Oh, it's just a soundtrack" when, really, it's a fantastic album. It was released in 2003 and there's so many gems on this album. From the dreamy track like "Vegetarian Restaurant" to the soft-spoken like "Jens's Sneaking" to the mysterious "At the Café", there are great instrumentals like "Real Life Television", "Three Boys", "The Bridge" (my fave to cruise to!), "This is now" and the electro-malicious "Wanting to kill." There are great songs with Karin and Olof just like any of their singles like "Hannah's conscious", "New Year's Eve" and the so danceable "Handy-Man." Songs like "High School Poem" will stun you with their beauty and depth. If you love Siousxie and the Banshees or Faith and the Muse, you'll worship this song. "A different way" is a haunting elegy that is something new for The Knife and Karin's voice. I love it. "Poetry by night" is also something new and its spirituality is elegant. They've even put "Listen Now" on the soundtrack a s a finish, and I have to see this movie!

So, that's it for now from The Knife. Who wants to play outside when Karin and Olof are cranked on the stereo in your bedroom? Not me. If you love creativity like "His Name is Alive" and the intensity of Seagull Screaming KissHer KissHer's "Red Talk" album--just buy The Knife! They do it all: soundtracks, videos, singles and whole albums that will feed you for days. They were my major lifesaving find of 2003 and they helped me remember that feeling of the first night I ever discovered ninja's, and how I couldn't wait to get up and ask everyone at the breakfast table and then school questions about ninjas, how the night was a thief that took me away from the magic that could be mine if only I could move to Japan and train to be one!

Who knows? Maybe if you are a girl and your first time was only a C minus maybe if you crank The Knife you're cherry will grow back or, if you're a boy, maybe you'll wake up tomorrow automatically knowing how to wield "the breath of death" (dart gun, round eye!)

Either way, you're gonna get horny in public when you listen to The Knife

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