12/17/08
Text: Nik Mercer
Photographers: Elin Berge
Stockholm's the Knife practically made up pee our pants from being creeped out by their infectious industrial synth-pop creations, and since the duo stopped touring in '07, we've been in want of more from the bird masked group.
Karin Andersson had another child and found it difficult to give a tremendous amount of time to making music, but the quasi-hiatus is over, and she's back as Fever Ray, a project just as eerie and ominous as the Knife. The debut record is out sometime next year, and while Andersson is keeping her lips pretty tightly sealed about that, she did kindly field a few of our preliminary questions.
The only track on your MySpace page is the ambient, spooky "If I Had A Heart." It's a cold introduction to your debut Fever Ray record. What's the tone of the full-length?
It's exactly the same. Maybe a glimps of sun here and there but not much, I'm afraid.
How does Fever Ray contrast the Knife aside from it being just you this time?
Maybe that's the only difference? I can't tell, I don't listen to my own music when I'm done.
Is there any underlying concept to the LP?
No.
How was the record written and recorded? I'm particularly interested to know how it was produced, too.
I worked on my own in my studio south of Stockholm for about seven months. I recorded most of the vocals, guitars, programmed beats and synths in my computer. I don't have much patience with analogue equipment except guitars so I did all beats in MicroTonic. After that I didn't know how to finish it. I was thinking of deleating everything. But I rang Christoffer Berg and asked him if he could help me out with the production part. He got five tracks. Then Olof mentioned Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid and I looked them up. They were also interested so they also got five tracks. They work a bit different. Christoffer sent me files to add in my production and VR & TSK took over the projects and changed a lot of my sounds to analogue ones. Then we mixed the four of us in a vintage studio in Gothenburg.
Most Swedish musicians have a knack for making brighter, poppier music. What's influenced you to arrive upon your style which is much darker and brooding?
I'm not into bright and poppy, I don't have the need for that kind of music. But there are swedish bands who are good, The Bear Quartet and Silverbullit for example.
Outside of Fever Ray, we haven't really heard from you. What else have you been up to since we lost track of the Knife? What does the future hold for the Knife?
The Knife ended touring in November '06, then I had another kid and I started working the summer '07, so I have been busy. The Knife is writing an opera [for] most of 2009, but we have talked about an album, too. We'll see when it will happen.
