darwin x electro x opera =

i chanced upon this album awhile back and was intrigued by it. i love 'the knife' but this seemed slightly off tangent from their previous sound from my very brief sampling of the first track. i was skeptical, but bewitched none the less.

forgot about it for a while until i chanced upon it again, somewhere on the www.
googled it and boyy, sounds nothing short of a tour de force.

"Replete with Amazonian field recordings and musique concrète, Tomorrow, in a Year provides a glitchy 90-minute soundtrack to a Danish opera about Charles Darwin. As such, a mezzo-soprano will often burble over atonal analogue synth passages, illustrating everything from biological processes to the cadences of Darwin's prose. There are pockets of beauty here well worth locating in among the sound of amoebas swimming in primordial soup."
(via http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/28/the-knife-mt-sims-review)

elsewhere,

"The piece begins presumably how the universe did, with silence. Drips of electronics build a form — somewhat hesitant, yet fearless. The Knife approaches art in the same way: There's always been a sense of icy vulnerability, yet more than ever, the duo charges bravely into sonically challenging territory from the outset of Tomorrow, In a Year. Wahlin's operatic voice comes through the primordialmuck minutes into "Epochs" amidst throbbing synths and cymbals. It's a sublime pronouncement, the chaos coming into harmony.

It's one thing to write an opera about Darwin; it's another entirely to use his theories as a basis of composition. Olaf Dreijer spent time in the Amazon jungle, researching and recording animals and objects. He learned from their timbres, infusing not only the field recordings into the piece (see "Letter to Henslow"), but also mimicking them with synths. "Variations of Birds," for instance,demonstrates how a species learns, mimics and evolves, as a solo synthesizer emits a screech of minimal splatter. But the variations gain a new sense of being halfway through, as "pop singer" Jonathan Johansson croons over a dark choir of ethereal voices. It's a thrilling point where the opera becomes aware just as the species does."
(via http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122944293)

the reviews got me.
and with titles like the following, this sounds like a profound piece of beauty and humanity to behold.

Disc 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

Disc 2
1. Annie's Box
2. Tumult
3. Colouring of Pigeons
4. Seeds
5. Tomorrow in a Year
6. The Height of Summer
7. Annie's Box (alternate vocal) (bonus track)


natural selection made aural and so much more.
i am sold.