Pitchfork

This performance of "Kino", shot at a 2006 concert in Amsterdam, is taken from the Knife's Silent Shout Deluxe Edition bonus DVD, out now on Mute. The Andreas Nilsson-directed visuals accompanying the live set provide a bizarre context for the jittery pop tune from Olof Dreijer and Karin Dreijer Andersson's self-titled 2001 debut.

The track emerges from a slow-building swirl of vocal reverb, as a hand slowly cranks a side-stage jack-in-the-box, finally bursting out in a flurry of creepy calliope and a stuttering techno beat. Olof counters Karin's subdued swagger with his boisterous Blue Man Group drumming, as both are drowned in radioactive green light while wearing typically weird masks. Behind them, a row of pulsing, multihued backlighting evokes the talking spaceship in the final scene of Close Encounters-- making the image of the singers' distorted faces projected over them seem uniquely extraterrestrial.