Behind The Mask: Fever Ray

Fever Ray is indelibly marked with inherited sonic elements from The Knife, but there is darker matter at hand here, too. Of her influences, Karin explains: “I was very into the Jim Jarmusch film ‘Dead Man’ during last summer especially, which expressed a more primitive and primal element I wanted to capture.  Also I’ve been listening to a lot of Tomahawk, an Indian inspired album called ‘Anonymous’.  I feel like that album especially is very free and inspiring.  Fever Ray is still very electronic, but maybe a little more organic than previously.”

The video for first single ‘If I Had A Heart’ runs as a short film across mist-covered rivers and into wooden houses hung with antlers, where Karin lurks, painted as a skeleton.  It is a haunting backdrop to the sinister throb and dark, writhing vocal of the track itself, although not all of the video’s early audiences were affected by its horror-like supernaturalism: “My eldest daughter didn’t think it was scary! She said, ‘Mum, you look just like someone from KISS!’  She’ll soon be six.”

It is hard to identify the proud parent that Karin suddenly becomes with the fragile preconstructed image of her as the elusive, in-demand heroine of Swedish electronica.  But if she eludes the restrictions of labels she does so in an industry that is becoming increasingly receptive to the individual.  Karin is optimistic about the future of music, saying, “Now that big, powerful record labels are beginning to disappear, something good will come out of it.  Especially with the internet, artists can reach out to a new audience without going through older, more conservative ways of releasing records.”

And of her own future? “I know that during 2009 I will be doing this with Fever Ray, some touring, and finishing the music for an opera that The Knife is working on.  I love making music most of the time, but I don’t know about the future. I don’t plan that much ahead.”  If her album receives anywhere near the recognition it deserves, Karin might find she has a busy few years ahead of her.

‘Fever Ray’ is out now on digital download via Rabid Records, and is set for physical release in March.