24/01/25
Four years have passed since Young Knives’ last studio outing – 2020’s aggressive and philosophical look at humanity’s propensity for hyper-violence, Barbarians – and during this time the band have taken a step to consider the changing of the world around them, their place in it, and the sometimes-futile pursuit of controlling what it is that we leave behind when we’re gone.
Music fans will pick-up on the tongue-in-cheek use of the word "landfill" as an album title from a band that emerged during the post-indie-rock-revival of the 00s. But rather than dwelling on the derogatory landfill stick that has sometimes comes to beat them, Young Knives instead use this coming phase of their career to contemplate the nature of existence and how best to catalogue it through song. As lead singer and guitarist Henry Dartnall puts it, “it’s a record is about letting things go before they are taken from you, including the carefully curated images of ourselves. Embracing everything the world throws at you and not taking it to heart.”
Fans of Young Knives may be forgiven for thinking that Landfill may be about to enter nihilistic territory, and with the band being evicted from their long-time home and studio during the recording process it is true to say that the album is imbued with a fear of the unknown, as adrenaline stokes the fires of vitriol. However, the record is far more concerned with retaining a philosophical outlook on how we view the passing of time, best exemplified by lead single ‘Dissolution’, which is partly inspired by the Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy quote “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” Dartnall expands: “I love ideas like this. What an amazing way to present such a deep idea but also make it fun. I just wanted to experiment with doing our version of that. You can’t force ideas on people, you can just suggest them and leave them hanging in a way that people might one day consider if they feel like it.”
Opening up more about the single, he continues: "This song is kind of dumb. The words are about the dissolution of the ego or ego death; a thing that appears in eastern religions and was written about in Joseph Campbell’s “A Hero’s Journey”. It’s the refocusing of your attention on the part of you that never becomes yesterday and can never become tomorrow, or something like that. It’s very similar to what people report from psychedelic experiences too. The problem is that writing and performing rock music is very much rooted in the world of the ego, so the idea of my big ego mouth shouting words about ego death is ridiculous. But then I thought that contradiction was kind of fun too."
We recorded the song to an old tape machine as a throwaway experiment. The tape we used was from a car boot sale and all perished and dusty. The channels of the tape machine kept failing because they were all clogged up with tape oxide. It was a live take and we did it with our friend’s Silke and Max Blansjaar playing drums and piano. It was also recorded at the end of our time in the studio we have had since we started together, so we were in the middle of packing it down. It felt like we were dismantling everything about our band and music so it all made sense at the time and felt very apt"
As a parting thought on the idea of identity and legacy, he offers: “We often think we have to fight the world to get success and legacy, or even just security and other such weird concepts. But even the most successful people in history have only postponed their second death (the last day someone says your name) by 500 - 2000 years tops. After that you are Landfill FOREVER. So why do we do it to ourselves?”