The Knife is a musical duo from Sweden formed in 1999. The band consists of siblings Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer, who also run their own record company, Rabid Records.
One of the group's distinguishing characteristics is their unwillingness to cooperate with the media or the mainstream music scene. The group rarely makes public appearances, most of their promotional photos feature the members wearing masks, usually venetian masks and until recently, they outright refused to perform live concerts. Recently the group has shown themselves in public wearing masks formed as birds' beaks, similar to those used by medieval doctors.
The Knife won a Grammis award as best pop group of the year 2003, but they boycotted the ceremony by sending two representatives of another artist group dressed as gorillas with the number 50 written on their costumes, apparently as a protest against male dominance within the music industry. Their album Deep Cuts was also nominated for a Grammis as the best record of the year 2003, although that award went to The Cardigans. It was also in 2003 that The Knife was featured as Artist of the Week at HitQuarters, which helped them gain greater attention in the worldwide music community.
The group became prominent when José González covered their song "Heartbeats" on his 2003 album, Veneer. The cover was used by Sony in a commercial for Bravia television sets, and released as a single in early 2006. The group commented on this in a Dagens Nyheter article, claiming that Sony paid a large sum of money to use the song. Despite the group's anti-commercial views, they justified the transaction by citing their need for money to establish a record company.
The Knife's song "We Share Our Mother's Health" from their album Silent Shout was featured by the iTunes Store as a free song of the week in late 2006. This song was also featured in the ABC series Ugly Betty, as well as an episode of CSI: NY. In August 2007, "Heartbeats" was featured on an episode of the HBO series Entourage.
Having never before performed live, The Knife went on tour in 2006, and after selling out shows worldwide, a DVD of the tour was announced. The DVD was released in Sweden on November 8, 2006, and is titled Silent Shout: An Audio Visual Experience.
Silent Shout was named the best album of 2006 by Pitchfork Media.
At the Grammis awards in January 2007, The Knife won in all six categories they were nominated in: Composer of the Year, Music DVD of the Year, Producer of the Year, Pop Group of the Year, Album of the Year and Artist of the Year. Again, they did not attend the award ceremony.
In an interview during the Silent Shout tour, Olof announced that the band would be going on a three-year hiatus, during which he would begin work on previously-started songs for Coolof, his solo DJ project.
Awards
2003 – Nöjesguiden’s Stockholm Award, Music Category 2003 – Swedish Hit Music Awards, Best Video “Heartbeats” 2003 – Swedish National Radio P3 “Gold”, Group of the Year 2003 – Swedish Grammies, Pop Group of the Year 2004 – Manifest Awards, Pop Rock 2004 – SAMA (Scandinavian Alternative Music Awards), Song of the Year "Heartbeats" 2006 – Pitchfork Media Album of the Year 2006 – Manifest Awards, Dance/House Techno of the Year 2006 – Manifest Awards, Live Performers of the Year 2007 – Swedish National Radio P3 “Gold”, Group of the Year 2007 – Swedish National Radio P3 “Gold”, Dance of the Year 2007 – Swedish Grammies, Artist of the Year 2007 – Swedish Grammies, Pop Album of the Year “Silent Shout” 2007 – Swedish Grammies, Songwriters of the Year 2007 – Swedish Grammies, Pop Producers of the Year 2007 – Swedish Grammies, Music-DVD of the Year "Silent Shout: An Audiovisual Experience" 2007 – Swedish Grammies, Pop Group of the Year 2007 – SAMA (Scandinavian Alternative Music Awards), Song of the Year "Marble House" 2007 – SAMA (Scandinavian Alternative Music Awards), Album of the Year "Silent Shout"
