It's been a while since we've heard from the Knife, the Swedish who released two of my favourite albums in the last five years (2004's Deep Cuts and 2006's Silent Shout). The last time I spoke with Olof Dreijier (in the beginning of 2007), he said that he and his sister were in no rush to follow-up Silent Shout, but that they were both working on their own music separately.
While Olof pointed that his solo material was more along the lines of minimal techno, nothing has yet to surface from whatever he's working on. Karin, however, appears to be the more prolific or at least, the more extroverted of the two rather introverted Swedes. Sans her usual masks or colourful get-ups, the Knife's singer has appeared out of thin air with Fever Ray, her new solo project.
Now located in Stockholm, Karin's first debut under Fever Ray is not a whole lot to chew on, being just an instrumental (with some heavy breathing), but "If I Had A Heart" shows that she isn't about to abandon the Knife's icy, synthetic core. Pulsating notes reverberate and form an ominous front that is left to its own minimal devices. It almost feels like too miniscule a serving to really comment on, but out of the next-to-nothing she lists on her site, a new album set for early 2009 (through the Knife's Rabid label) more than makes up for this tease. (No word on whether this song will appear with vocals on said album.)
What this all says about the future of the Knife, I'm not sure, but it's nice to have at least half of them back after what felt like a trillion heartbeats.
Fever Ray "If I Had a Heart (Instrumental Edit)"
While Olof pointed that his solo material was more along the lines of minimal techno, nothing has yet to surface from whatever he's working on. Karin, however, appears to be the more prolific or at least, the more extroverted of the two rather introverted Swedes. Sans her usual masks or colourful get-ups, the Knife's singer has appeared out of thin air with Fever Ray, her new solo project.
Now located in Stockholm, Karin's first debut under Fever Ray is not a whole lot to chew on, being just an instrumental (with some heavy breathing), but "If I Had A Heart" shows that she isn't about to abandon the Knife's icy, synthetic core. Pulsating notes reverberate and form an ominous front that is left to its own minimal devices. It almost feels like too miniscule a serving to really comment on, but out of the next-to-nothing she lists on her site, a new album set for early 2009 (through the Knife's Rabid label) more than makes up for this tease. (No word on whether this song will appear with vocals on said album.)
What this all says about the future of the Knife, I'm not sure, but it's nice to have at least half of them back after what felt like a trillion heartbeats.
Fever Ray "If I Had a Heart (Instrumental Edit)"
