by LORRAINE CARPENTER
Beauty isn’t paramount to Karin Dreijer Andersson, at least not in public. The 34-year-old mother of two, who had just tucked in her kids when the Mirror rang, is a world-renowned musician and songwriter without a face.
As half of the Knife, the electro duo she formed with her younger brother Olof Dreijer in 1999, Andersson hid her near-perfect Scandinavian features behind masks. In the world of electronic performance, production and DJing, that wasn’t unprecedented—Daft Punk and 2ManyDJs have famously concealed their identities—and the alternative rock milieu has produced a few faceless characters, like the Residents and Slipknot. For some of these men, masks were a mere gimmick, but when a woman hides, obscures and distorts herself—and Andersson does all three on stage, in photos and in videos for her solo project, Fever Ray—it’s not surprising that the motivation is at least partly political. By lowering her voice to a male pitch (with the TC-Helicon Live machine and Steinberg VoiceMachine software), she strives to “destroy the construction of gender” in her music, and her appearance achieves a similar goal.
“We try to find something completely different from the normal way you see a musician,” she says, referring to herself and her art director, Andreas Nilsson. “You always think about their fashion and lifestyle, but I think it’s interesting to do something that is not usual, and that is allowed to be ugly.”
Night vision
The visual side of Fever Ray complements her sound, but the music is far more beautiful than ugly. That said, some of her songs are unsettling, even disturbing, despite their roots in the ’80s pop and electro of Andersson’s childhood (the first seven-inch single she purchased was Cyndi Lauper’s “All Through the Night”). Her album, Fever Ray, features stark electronic sounds entangled with sparring guitar and percussion while sturdy girlish (and sometimes mannish) vocals work with minimal scraps of strange narratives. The videos, particularly Nilsson’s creation for the eerie “If I Had a Heart,” enhance the effect of the music, and with smoke, lighting, costumes and props, Fever Ray’s live show strives to do the same.
“We really try to work with the whole room,” says Andersson. “Ideally, it would be nice to have a feeling where everything happens in a place that you have no relation to at all. You’re reset when you come into the venue, and you’re reset also when you see a music video. But it’s just very difficult to work with visuals [live]. It’s better to work with performers in a very theatrical way, to really try to create a space where you can experience music in a way that you can’t when you’re listening to an iPod.”
And then there was one
A week prior to our interview, Andersson had attended the Copenhagen premiere of the opera Tomorrow, In a Year, a tribute to Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Denmark’s Hotel Pro Forma, with a commissioned soundtrack by the Knife.
“It’s been fantastic to work with all these people,” she says. “We have learned so much during this process, it was like going back to school. It’s a synthesis of so many different parts—the sound, the choreography, dance, lights, there’s so much going on that I have no control over, but I’m really happy with what we have created.”
Andersson and her brother worked on the music for a year and a half, and they plan to release a studio album of their soundtrack material in the new year. She’s also booking studio time for January, but she doesn’t know yet whether she’ll be working on a new Knife album with Olof or another Fever Ray record on her own.
“I’m very happy to be by myself,” she says, suggesting that each project (the first being a very ’90s indie rock quintet called Honey Is Cool) has brought her more satisfaction, perhaps because each has had fewer collaborators. “It’s very important that you don’t compromise when making music, and it’s very easy to do that when you have a lot of people around. But playing live is definitely a collaboration. It’s fantastic to have the live band.”
However, it’s the end of the road for this record, and for her current live band. The Fever Ray Web site has announced a small European tour in December, calling it “the final Fever Ray tour.” Andersson herself is unsure of exactly what this means, but hints that we’ll likely see Fever Ray again, but who knows where or when.
WITH VUK AT METROPOLIS TONIGHT,
THURSDAY, OCT. 1, 8 P.M.
Picks from
the mix at Pop
A fistful of fine choices among
the fest’s overflowing spread
SWEET AND EMPHATIC: The Døby RUPERT BOTTENBERG,
JOHNSON CUMMINS
and JACK OATMON
With literally hundreds of acts on the menu at Pop Montreal this year, selecting one’s stops each night can be maddening, so here are a few names, care of the Mirror’s music writers, you might not know but would do damn well to pencil in.
Todor Kobakov: After years at the keys for Emily Haines, Luke Doucet and his own band Major Maker, and arranging strings for Stars etc., Torontonian Kobakov returned to his roots for his debut, Pop Music—a tricky title given that it’s solo classical piano, reflecting on his conservatory-bound Bulgarian childhood. But that’s half the picture, as it also draws on Kobakov’s Canadian indie-scene adulthood, and moreover, Haines and TVOTR’s Tunde Adebimpe sing on a song each on it. In any case, the real charm is that it never slides into either abrasive pretension or mawkish schmalz. Oh, and they’ll be dragging a proper baby grand onto the venue’s dancefloor for this set. That’s dedication! (RB) At O Patro Vys, Thurs., Oct. 1, 8 p.m., $8
The Intelligence: Without a doubt, Detroit label In the Red has been fighting the good fight to keep rock ’n’ roll dangerous, fucked up and as noisy as ever, so it’s no wonder that Portland, OR’s the Intelligence have called it home for their last three records. Led by Lars Finberg, ex-A Frames, this is a raucous and ramshackle affair but instead of just playing the same ol’ lo-fi noise card that’s currently polluting the blogs, this fearsome foursome actually sneak in some serious songcraft underneath their downpour of reverb, slashing guitars and general dementia. (JC) At la Sala Rossa, Thurs., Oct. 1, 1 a.m., $15
The Dø: The Franco-Finnish duo of Dan Levy and Olivia B. Merilahti can certainly cook up a sweet, emphatic indie-pop dittie with just enough quirk to work right. Their debut album, A Mouthful, is full of such stuff, but the adventurous pair don’t stop there, pastiching Björk one moment, indulging in some ersatz Africana the next, wiggling and giggling their way through the charmingly lascivious hip hop of “Queen Dot Kong” and conjuring up a kindergarten calamity with “Playground Hustle.” Named for the first and last note of the musical scale, they damn near hit every one in between at some point. (RB) At Théâtre Plaza, Fri., Oct. 2, 11:30 p.m., $17
SOUL, EXPRESSED: Lee Fields
tUnE-YaRdS: Montrealer Merrill Garbus released her debut, BiRd-BrAiNs, in a fancy limited-edition affair this week. The regular version arrives in November, so in the meantime, here’s a chance to see what the fuss is about, and in one of the more worthwhile settings in town. Though essentially a solo effort on disc, Garbus rounds up a pro tem tribe for the stage, accenting the ad populum aspect of clangorous post-millennial folk that’s rough-hewn, ritualistic and regressive in the inner-child sense. Sounds like a soundtrack to Lord of the Flies if there’d been girls on the island to keep things civil (which isn’t to say civilized). (RB) At the Musée d’art contemporain, Fri., Oct. 2, 7 p.m., $8
Kinetic Stereokids: By turns squealing, squawking power pop and melancholy bluegrass produced to a reverbed, ambient veneer, sometimes even a groovy, mashed-up, Beck-esque aggregate, the Kinetic Stereokids’ music is, at its foundation, confusing and eclectic. The “kinetic” part is the distances the quintet manage to cover while keeping a coherent aesthetic. The “kids” part is said aesthetic—a starry-eyed, introspective, even innocent playfulness. Not unlike MGMT or the Legends, they capture something of the over-influenced, under-confident vibe of the digital generation, having been there and heard that, but not always knowing, or caring, what it meant. (JO) At Green Room, Sat., Oct. 3, 9:15 p.m.
ALL THEY SURVEY: Satellite Maps
Satellite Maps: This quintet features a pair of hairy Garys familiar to local stages—bassist Brazier (Sofa, Cheryl Sim etc.) and founder Jansz, who drew these Maps following the mothballing of Quinimine. The terrain being traversed here is meticulous, mood-rich, slow-fi alt-folk/chamber rock, with keys galore and Shevaugh Battle’s violin to boot, but it’s the laptop work of Adam Lipper, conspiring with rather than playing counterpoint to the organic nature of the tunes, that defines the expansive topography with an intricate, abstracted grid. (RB) At Gymnase, Sat., Oct. 3, 10 p.m.
Neon Walrus: A pastiche of Toto-smooth radio pop and frenetic post-disco, with a subtle touch of chiptune style, reminiscent of the solo, bedroom-produced Rendezvous days of Cut Copy. Neon Walrus also have a really funny name, ramshackle lo-fi production and a kitschy, anachronistic image to boot. Add to all that the surprising factor that a duo from the massive, cacophonous Mexico City could casually execute such a mellow flavour of ’80s retro-clash. The overall package, though a tad schmaltzy, is catchy, memorable and painfully earnest, as any genuine pop music should be. (JO) At Playhouse, Sat., Oct. 3, 11 p.m.
Lee Fields & the Expressions: Sharon Jones, empress of the current indie retro-soul revival, was discovered singing back-up for Fields, a veteran of four decades of hauling out bucketfuls of true-blue, top-grade vintage R&B, all blood, sweat and heartbroken tears (and a splash of honey). With a back-up band drawn from Antibalas, El Michels Affair and the Dap-Kings, Fields banged out the forthcoming My World (out Oct. 13), an album that holds its own next to the Stax classics. The real deal, simply put. (RB) At la Sala Rossa, Fri., Oct. 2, midnight, $20
Party Wallet: Equally loved and hated, the PT Barnum of Toronto show promoters, Dan Burke puts the hucksterism aside to stomp the pines and try his rusty pipes out on a set consisting of Magazine, Herman Brood and, the smart money says, at least one Stooges cover. Joining his three-ring circus are some all-star enablers including Montrealers Jena Roker (the Sunday Sinners), Adam Brown and the Peelies. Don’t expect pitch perfection here but if you want to see a man do more drugs than LiLo straight outta rehab while diving straight into the eye of chaos, don’t miss this one. (JC) At Bar St-Laurent 2, Sat., Oct. 3, 12:30 a.m.
FOR MORE INFO, GO TO
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