Talking to Karin Dreijer Andersson is simultaneously intimidating and fascinating. The Swedish producer and songwriter – one half of The Knife and also the author of this year’s mind-alteringly good Fever Ray solo album – is so quiet that she’s almost inaudible, shy but also self-possessed and formidably intelligent. In a rare interview, she tells Tom Hawking about parenthood, smoke machines and why she loves David Lynch.
I read that you made Fever Ray when you were at home after the birth of your second child. How much did the experience of parenthood influence the creation of the album?
Um… I think everything that is around you when you make music affects what you do. I don’t really go out and look for inspiration – I normally go into the studio, sit down and write from what’s there. I think absolutely that this quite new situation is quite apparent in this album, too – but also [The Knife’s]
Silent Shout where I had my first [child]. But maybe it’s more about the vulnerability that becomes more obvious [when you have a child] – everything about life and also death, which I think becomes much closer when you have been able to give life.
I ask because many of the songs sound to me like they’re from a child’s perspective, or lyrically based around the theme of childhood.
Yes. I think I have used [the perspective of] my oldest daughter – all her questions and ideas and thoughts. I have used that for some time – it’s a way of thinking that is really good for grown-up people to…
To re-adopt?
Yes.
What about the effects you use on your vocals? They also seem to bring different perspectives and characters to your songs.
I see them more as mental characters – different emotions or emotional characters, not really as people. It’s more that different feelings have different sounds.
Different moods?
Yeah, I think so.
Do you enjoy playing with the idea of gender? Because often your voice sounds like it could be a man or a woman.
Yes, I try with my work to open up the area in which female musicians can work. [I] try to take away standards about how a female musician should sound or look. With sound you can do so many things… It’s very easy to do this with sound; it’s difficult to do it with images and photos and videos because it’s even more… It’s much harder to change what females should look like.
That leads into the next question that I wanted to ask – with that difficulty in mind, how have you approached performing these songs live?
Well, I have worked again with an artist friend of mine, Andreas Nilsson…
He also worked on some of your videos?
Yes, he did the ‘If I Had a Heart’ video.
If I Had A Heart from Fever Ray on Vimeo.
That’s such a great video.
Thank you. He’s amazing. I discussed with him a lot about the live show and what we were supposed to do. At first I worked with a five-piece band, and we had a lot of scenery, stage sets, design on stage – we worked a lot with more theatrical elements like light and smoke, and we also had costumes and masks, so we try to work and experiment with the concert format to see what you’re able to do on a stage, and use a lot of things that people are already using in theatres, but not so many use on music concerts.
Has the stage show evolved over time?
Yes, absolutely. We are developing it for every show, both sound and visuals. We have also started to work with incense also, to have it smell a certain way. That is very hard on festivals. [laughs quietly].
I can imagine.
We can control everything but the wind! It’s quite hard for us because we use quite a lot of smoke, so now we need smoke machines throughout the whole festival.
The album sounds very intimate and personal – has it been difficult to work with other musicians to reproduce it live?
No, I don’t think so. [By the time we played it live] it was finished, mixed and mastered, so that’s not hard. I think music should be personal and intimate, and I think I’ve found people who are very careful about the music but still put a lot of themselves into it, so it works really well live.
I also wanted to ask you about the visual aspect of your music. I read somewhere you were a fan of David Lynch?
Yes, I am a big fan. I am reading his book now, which I’ve forgotten the title of… [laughs].
Catching The Big Fish?
Yes, about transcendental meditation. It’s very interesting. I really like him.
I like how his work is more evocative than literal. It strikes me that your lyrics and visuals are also like that.
I think so, yes. It was very nice [in the book] when [Lynch] told the story about when he started with film – he had been practicing painting before that, and he wanted to make a painting that moved. I also… I think of my music as very visual, and trying to find the right sound to describe all the images. He also said the best place to live was in Los Angeles, because of the light. Here it’s very dark, so it’s very different.
But that also reflects in your music.
Perhaps. Maybe. [pauses a little] Yes, I think it definitely reflects where you live, the kind of music that you make.