join me in anticipating musics by FEVER RAY (aka one half of the knife)

Yeah, looking forward to a physical release. Somehow I've imagined it being white-on-black silkscreen in a matte black cardboard sleeve, but it probably won't be. . .

You asked for a non-shiny cardboard sleeve? Well, look what I got in the mail from bengans.se today:

http://i41.tinypic.com/tzhqg.jpg

http://i41.tinypic.com/10o0868.jpg

Enhanced CD:

I:\>dir
Volume in drive I is Fever Ray
Volume Serial Number is 51F4-3665

Directory of I:\

05/01/2009 14:51 103.849.072 If I Had A Heart, High.mp4
05/01/2009 15:15 38.851.518 If I Had A Heart, Low.mp4
2 File(s) 142.700.590 bytes

i wonder why the sunglasses

I got somethin' to say to you and you better listen -
i'm gonna tell ya how to be cool in one easy lesson:

sunglasses after dark

That looks great StanM!

What's with the 'high' and 'low'? Is it the video?

Yes, it's the video in two formats.

I love this album! can't wait for the physical release. this doesn't have the highs of Silent Shout, but it
seems more consistent. dark and moody without being depressing, beautiful melodies, great sound palette...
even the crappy mp3s have amazing depth.

Google translation of an interview in a Belgian paper today. Kiss, Tomahawk, The Knife. :-)

"Oer" cannot be translated, it seems ;)
She also mentioned Kiss in an interview with Groove. (mentioning that a friend of her daughter said "Geil! Your mother looks like she's in Kiss")

You asked for a non-shiny cardboard sleeve? Well, look what I got in the mail from bengans.se today:

Nice!

tempted to get this on vinyl

slightly surreal concert in Göteborg, Sweden, tonight. Karin Dreijer entered the venue in some sort of headgear, looking a bit like a mix of an uprooted tree and a bison head.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MaBelll

I'm actually enjoying this thing more and more. Getting a proper physical copy has made me hear so many more things. Amazing production

I called the record shop today, asked if they were getting it on vinyl, and if they could hold a copy for me :)

Album of the year.

So far.

yeah definitely album of the year. It keeps giving and giving

I want to like this but I'm definitely not feeling it. So yeah, great production, I love Karin's voice and beautiful videos... but nothing else. I think the melodies are mediocre, and the tracks I've heard so far consist of no more than a theme repeated over and over. What am I missing?

...actually the spooky vocal effect is kind of annoying too.

It's going to grow on you.

Also, don't get cardboard cd cases wet, they get deformed and horrible. I may even order it again since this cover was so nice and now it sucks so much :-(

:-(

Yeah it is def. a grower. The whole thing seems monotonous and austere at first but there is so much going on, esp. in the vocals (and I used to hate the spooky thing when the Knife albums came out)

I agree w/ david. I got to the fourth or fifth listen, then realized that while it sounded alright when it was on, I couldn't remember a damn thing of it when it was not. I decided at that point that it probably wasn't worth any more of my time.

This almost sounds like a sister album to Homogenic, albeit less pop and far, far darker. But similarly "homogenic" (lolz) and/or singular, all-encompassing in its mood.

A friend told me that you had to be a former goth to really enjoy this. Maybe she is right

Homogenic isn't completely unmemorable, though.

i've had songs from this going through my head for a month now

One of my favs of the first quarter of 2009. So simple yet so epic. Does anyone have a copy of the Hakan Libdo remix? i think i need that.

The "biography" section of her website is actually pretty interesting and explores the songs in detail:
http://feverray.com/biography/

I hadn't much thought of the motherhood aspect of all of these lyrics but it does make sense. It seems a lot of this album occurs at 4AM, outside in the garden of a country house, trying to be quiet cuz everybody else is sleeping.

http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/7631-fever-ray/

I got to the fourth or fifth listen, then realized that while it sounded alright when it was on, I couldn't remember a damn thing of it when it was not. I decided at that point that it probably wasn't worth any more of my time.

I'm interested in this reaction. Sometimes I sort of like when I can't remember music when it's not on, because it can then be a nice surprise when I do put it on.

Gets better with every play - I'm really starting to appreciate the subtly changing colours to the whole thing, especially all those droney noises.

I haven't listened to The Knife that much, but I'm really digging this album. It's not a perfect masterpiece, but the moods and sounds on it are pretty unique. It's really hard these days to hear a record with no obvious reference points, so the way Fever Ray takes you into a sphere of its own is quite impressive. The only obvious comparison I can think of is Peter Gabriel's fourth self-titled album from 1982; both of them use nominally poppy/dancey synths and beats, but make them trance-like and somewhat scary, and the vocals sound more like chants than pop singing, and the whole thing feels like urban ritual music. I'm thinking that the album cover's resemblance to Charles Burns' comic art is not a coincidence: the whole record could be a soundtrack for Black Hole in the way it suggests creepy and at the same time fascinating things behind mundane surfaces.

Also, if people were expecting this to be a pop album then no doubt they were disappointed, since catchy pop hooks don't seem to be the point here. I'd say there are hooks though, but most of them are in the synth riffs rather than in the vocals (which I think are intentionally kept simple and chant-like). Just listen to the synth melody in "Seven", it's totally gorgeous!

you might have missed this, re: the cover art while you were on vacation, but ilx's own max did the cover art for this album

Okay, I didn't know that. Max, did Fever Ray ask you to do a homage to Charles Burns?

thanks, tuomas

Peter Gabriel's fourth self-titled album from 1982

??

peter gabriel's fourth album is entitled "security"

Good album. Favorite song is Keep the Streets Empty for Me. There is only one thing about this song I don't like, and that's that high pitched too-loud sound that bends at 4:21. Could have been so much more effective if was in the back of the mix.

Coconut is awes too

lol xps

favorite song is Keep the Streets Empty for Me.

that's mine too i think. i couldn't work out if it was just because it was the first one i caught the name of, because i subsequently liked all the rest a lot when i learnt the names. but there is something.

has the lp of this showed up in any stores yet?, imports notwithstanding?

peter gabriel's fourth album is entitled "security"

I was self-titled in Europe, but I think in the US it was called Security. My copy has no such title.

i'll have to ask max to speak to peter about this

Fever Ray is this month's CD in the Rough Trade Album club (and comes with a bonus CD of remixes by Fuck Buttons, one called "Van Rivers Dark Sails on the Horizon Mix," and one called "Remembered by the Subliminal Kid").

There is a leaflet/interview thing with it where she's asked to list her influences on the album. Some interesting choices:

1) Fugazi - "13 Songs" (!!!!!)
"A brilliant band, and a brilliant collection of powerful, emotional songs. It's real and honest and raw and angry but also sensitive and kind of bruised, not macho."

2) Tomahawk - "Anonymous"
"I think Mike Patton has been doing very interesting stuff for a while now, and this record was one we listened to a lot when we were finishing the album. It had a good impact on the record."

3) Fuck Buttons - "Street Horrsing"
"They did a remix of the first single, and I love it and I love this album, they are a great band. Very exciting."

pretty excellent show tonight (supporting also great Royksopp but FR have the EDGE). strict renditions from the album (which still hasn't engrained enough for me to recognise everything), but with added pretty lasers. was too high up to really see Karin and her band tho, and she only sang one song with Royksopp (Tricky Tricky) which was disappointing (Drecker sang What Else Is There and This Must Be It well but hmph).

i don't think you could see karin or her band from anywhere - you definitely never saw their faces. unless you got right up close to the stage, maybe. totally creepy and awesome. that gig pushed me off the fence into LOVING her music, anyway. i was wrong about not remembering any of it b/c i recognised every song within the first few bars. 'keep the streets empty for me' was incredible.

Saw her/them friday in Rotterdam - fantastic show. Shaded lamps + lasers + carefully placed mirrors = magic. Also the costumes looked great but it was a bit too dimly lit to fully appreciate those. Looked a bit like Pirates of the Carribean extras :)
They played two songs I didn't recognize (and I know the album by heart). One with a chorus with "I'm a stranger" lyrics (barely understandable through the vox-modifications) and a short piece near the end that was some sort of interlude I think. Highly recommended!

Ah, I just read a review that said they covered Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds "Stranger than Kindness".

That sounds great Willem, makes me feel even more sad I couldn't attend.

Was there a merch table?