Fever Ray

Every now and then you come across a musician that makes you sit and listen in awe; a musician which gives you no choice but to enter their world. Karin Dreijer Andersson is a most persuasive tour guide into the darkly dreamy world of Fever Ray.

Karin and her brother, Olof Dreijer, constitute the magnificent duo The Knife. In addition to having their album, Silent Shout, named best album of 2006 by Pitchfork, they also were nominated for and won all 6 Swedish Grammys in 2007. They were gaining great international attention much deserved recognition. But then it was time for a break. Karin had a child but couldn’t stop writing. In early 2009, we experienced the result of her post-natal daydreaming and writing: Fever Ray, both the title of the project and the album.

While recognizably the work of the same artist, is dramatically different from The Knife. It’s still constructed on electronic foundations and embellished with traditional instrumentation (guitar here, congas there), but Fever Ray is starker, moodier, and in places quite somber. While it may sound like various artists on the album, it is all Karin plus the help of various voice modulators.

“Sometimes, when you’re as old as I am now, you think you’re going to quit, and people around you think you’re going to quit. But then you have days when you realise how good music can be, there’s so much left to explore and so much left to do. That’s why I sometimes feel I’ll never quit.”

Here are three of our absolute favorite Fever Ray videos. Enjoy!

Seven from Fever Ray on Vimeo.

When I Grow Up from Fever Ray on Vimeo.

If I Had A Heart from Fever Ray on Vimeo.

-bradley smith