Mt. Sims and the Knife's Olof Dreijer Announce Collaborative Album, Share New Song

"Hybrid Fruit" is the first taste of 'Souvenir,' a five-track exploration of the steel drum and its colonial history

BY Kaelen BellPublished Apr 28, 2023

The Knife's Olof Dreijer has joined forces with Mt. Sims for Souvenir, a new collection of steel drum music. The five-track album is arriving June 9 on Rabid Records, and you can listen to first single "Hybrid Fruit" now.

Souvenir is Dreijer's first full-length project as a lead artist since the Knife called it quits in 2014, and sees him reunite with Sims following 2010's Tomorrow, In a Year. The album is described as the result of 10 years spent exploring the steel drum in an attempt to free it from its stereotypical depictions and usage in Western music. The Knife have famously used steel drum in their recordings since their earliest releases, and the instrument appeared on "Kandy," Fever Ray's collaboration with Olof from this year's Radical Romantics

"We tried to find our own thing," Dreijer said of the project in a statement. "That's usually our way around using an instrument that has been heavily exoticized and appropriated." 

According to a press release, Dreijer and Sims started working on Souvenir after the Trinidad-via-New York organization Special Friends of the Earth (SFOTE) invited the duo to compose with a steel drum created by Trinidadian instrument maker Ellie Mannette. They used the opportunity to draw attention to Scandinavia's role in colonizing the Caribbean, including a reinterpretation of medieval Swedish folk song "Liten Karin" on the record.

Writers Anna-Maria Sörberg, Nathan Hamelberg and Tomas Hemstad co-authored a text to accompany the album, which you can check out on Dreijer's website. Dreijer is also allegedly planning to release new solo music this year. 

See the Souvenir tracklist and listen to "Hybrid Fruit" below. 


Souvenir:

1. Liten Karin
2. Hybrid Fruit
3. A Vessel of Clay
4. Breaths of Clay
5. Across This Mud

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