Fever Ray | If I Had A Heart (Fuck Buttons Remix)

January 14th, 2009 Stu

The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson in her solo Fever Ray guise releases her new album digitally today from Klicktrack and iTunes (physical formats follow, oddly, in over two months on March 21st). [See previous post for info on this project]. The cover art brings to mind comic artist Charles Burns – indeed, it may well be Burns, given that The Knife’s ‘Silent Shout’ video was apparently deeply inspired by his work.

A 7″ single also drops shortly (Jan 27th) with remixes of the ‘If I Had A Heart’ single, including this version from my latest obsession, Fuck Buttons (playing in Sydney this week, including an appearance at the Nick Cave curated All Tomorrows Parties on Cockatoo Island).

Fever Ray – If I Had A Heart (Fuck Buttons Remix) | mp3

img | origamadon

Tags: feverray, fuckbuttons, sweden

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Fever Ray | If I Had A Heart

December 17th, 2008 Stu

The Knife’s ‘Silent Shout’ remains as good as it sounded right from day one – dark, fucked up, dramatic gothtronica, that is in turns both desperately sad and perversely beautiful. ‘We Share Our Mother’s Health’ remains one of the most bleak and morose electro-pop songs yet committed to tape, but with her Knife offshoot project Fever Ray, Karin Dreijer Andersson seems determined to plunge still further into the darkness. The lead single “If I Had A Heart” (released today on The Knife’s Rabid Records via 7Digital, Beatport and Klicktrack) borrows much of the vocal styles that Karin employed on ‘Silent Shout’ – the screwed, wound-down slow-mo treatment, dropped here in tandem with Karin’s untreated voice. As a precursor for the self-titled album due on March 21st, and a proposed live show being prepared in tandem, it offers those with a Knife-shaped hole in their heart some hope to lean into.

If I had a heart, I’d post the single itself (which you can stream on Fever Ray’s Murdochspace and I urge you to shed your coin for), but in place of that treat, here’s a voxless edit as an entree for the main course.

Fever Ray – If I Had A Heart (Instrumental Edit) | mp3

Tags: feverray, rabidrecords, sweden, theknife

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First Aid Kit | Tiger Mountain Peasant Song

December 9th, 2008 Stu

A few months back, the YouTube clip for Swedish duo First Aid Kit and their cover of Fleet Foxes‘ ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song’ skipped round the world-wide-eyed web like the world-wide wildfire. Such is the love for Fleet Foxes, such is the love for the fact that they were signing it in the middle of a forest, and such is the the strength and savage roar that First Aid Kit bring to the track. Savagery that’s all the more remarkable given that they’re two teenage sisters from Stockholm who run marathons and love Gary Numan. Klara and Johanna Söderberg confess to not only loving the Numanoid but also have a penchant for Bright Eyes, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, which explains how they might have come to write such intense yet delicate songs, yet fails to capture the story of the honey-flecked, bear-like growl that posits them as a DNA mutation, birthed via a netherworld tryst between Cocorosie and Johnny Cash.

The album, ‘Drunken Trees’, is rather fittingly released via The Knife’s Rabid Records label (availably digitally), and will be given a UK reissue next February via Wichita – complete with the Fleet Foxes cover (which you can also download below), and a DVD featuring more tracks sung in that Swedish forest. Last week they were given the oddly dubious nomination of “Most Promising Swedish Act On MySpace” and you can give them your vote-love via their MurdochSpace blog.

First Aid Kit – Tiger Mountain Peasant Song | mp3 (mediafire link)

Tags: firstaidkit, rabidrecords, sweden, theknife

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