Track Listing

1. If I Had A Heart
2. When I Grow Up
3. Dry And Dusty
4. Seven
5. Triangle Walks
6. Concrete Walls
7. Now's The Only Time I Know
8. I'm Not Done
9. Keep The Streets Empty For Me
10. Coconut
11. If I Had A Heart

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #800 in Music
• Released on: 2009-03-30
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

CD Description
Fever Ray is the title, of both the project and album by Fever Ray, aka Karin Dreijer Andersson, one half of The Knife. It’s the culmination of work that began in 2007 when Karin and Olof, the brother-sister duo who are The Knife, decided to take time out following a handful of incredible live shows. Their first two albums did well in their Swedish homeland; their third, Silent Shout, went to Number One, won six Swedish Grammys, underlined their reputation as an act capable of the truly extraordinary and was pronounced the best record of 2006 by Pitchfork. After having her second child and eight months of the most productive daydreaming later, Karin had a batch of new songs and the raw materials for the production of Fever Ray. Unsure how to get them over the finishing line, she took half to Christoffer Berg (who mixed The Knife’s work), half to Stockholm production duo Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid for a final brush and tickle. The result is Fever Ray, an album that, while recognisably the work of the same artist, is dramatically different from The Knife. It’s still constructed on electronic foundations and embellished with traditional instrumentation (guitar here, congas there). One thing’s for sure--in a country with a wealth of leftfield pop artists, Karin Dreijer Andersson sounds like no one but herself. Constantly inventive, restlessly emotive, Fever Ray swaggers, broods, intrigues and dazzles without ever making concessions to the soap opera demands of modern media. Fever Ray works its magic. Here’s your chance to fall under its spell.

Customer Reviews

Dark and awesome
I was suprised to be able to get this so quickly seeing as the official release date was supposed to be the end of March..then lo and behold the digital version is advertised to release mid Jan...good stuff!
The solo album The Knifes Karin Drejer Andersson-this is dark, unsettling but utterly beguiling stuff.
If it took a while or if its still taking time for 'if I had a heart' to grow on you, do not fear, it'll happen- and when it does you wont be able to get enough of it! As for the rest of the album there are one or two moments akin to that track and also a few lighter but still completley captivating. All killer no filler...buy it now!

Music For Long Dark Nights
Dark, uncompromising music from one
Karin Elisabeth Dreijer Andersson.

Perhaps it has something to do with all
those long, angst-ridden, Swedish nights.
(Mr Strindberg understood this very
well too a century before her).

She is possessed by a turbulent vision and if you don't mind
a bumpy ride it is well worth making the journey with her.

The album deploys a far richer and more subtle application
of electronica than many of her contemporaries could even
begin to understand. At times the effect is truly magical.

It is a largely slow to mid-tempo collection and sustains
an intense melancholic mood pretty much throughout.

The voice is distinctive. Occasional sonic manipulation adds
to the otherworldly ambience. A ghost in the machine indeed.

The instrumental arrangements are spare and uncluttered and
support the melodic structure of the songs perfectly.

The pulsing motif of opening track 'If I Had A Heart' sets the
stage for much of what follows. A primal bad dream of a song.
A bit like wading through thick mud - unable to wake up.
The sound of your own heart beating in your ears.

Things don't get any easier.

'When I Grow Up' is a marvelously bitter-sweet composition.
The haunting vocal is really unnerving.
A woman wailing among the wolves.

The nervous skittering percussion of 'Concrete Walls' frames
one of the album's strongest and strangest musical ideas.
The disturbing vocal harmonies sound as though they might
be oozing out of a dark hole in the forest floor.
(Fanciful perhaps but you'll get my drift when you hear it -
and you MUST hear it !)

'Keep The Streets Dark For Me' is a remarkably focussed and
desolate piece. Almost unbearable in its raw intensity.

Closing track 'Coconut', despite its whimsical title, offers
little by way of respite. It is an elemental outpouring from
somewhere deep in this extraordinary woman's spirit.

A consumately satisfying and deeply disturbing musical experience.

Highly Recommended.

Excellent and Mysterious
This is the debut album from Fever Ray (she's Karin Dreijer Andersson). A great and evocative voice, Karin is in tune and here brings your sound (a style alike The Knife), some more natural, a eletronic world music. She creates a mysthical atmosphere (like Bjork), but some songs keeps the connection to the 80's like the excellent Seven, and still great songs with her normal vocal (no synthetic proccess) Keep Street Empty For Me, Now's The Only Time I Know" and When I Grow Up.
A delicious travel around a mysterious world, that just only Karin knows the roads.