Everybody loves a good on-stage get up. None more so than Fever Ray – who have recruited Andreas Nilsson (the director of their spectaculat 2009 live show and the ‘If I Had A Heart‘ and ‘Stranger Than Kindness‘ video clips) in a collaboration to put needle to thread – designing the bands performance costumes for 2010. Leaking the ‘first look’ pics onto the interwebs this week, these things look totally fresh! Kind of wondering what the rest of the collection has instore for eager punters lucky enough to catch on of the shows scheduled throughout the UK in the coming weeks.

Continuing the fever-pitch, the band also launched a pre-order of a ‘Mercy Street‘ 7″ and new tee’s (also designed by Andreas Nilsson). It’s a bundled kit, so if your keen its available from the bands e-store HERE

Newsflash: A limted number of free downloads are available now from NME.com here.

Fever Ray has today confirmed what many suspected after a shocking, mildly terrifying (and anonymous) image appeared last week with the words ‘Mercy Street’ upon it. Having performed spellbinding live covers of well-loved tracks by artists as varied as Nick Cave, Vashti Bunyan and Peter Gabriel, her cover of the latter’s ‘Mercy Street’ is set for release later this year on limited 7″ and download through Rabid Records.

“It’s an interpretation of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Mercy Street’. We made it more intense and faster to fit our excentric pecussionists and energetic live musicians. It is a monotone track but we worked with the dynamics trying to make it sparkle. I listened to it a lot when I was around 15, and it still moves me. It made me start reading Anne Sexton too.” Karin

For those who have yet to experience the ‘Mercy Street’ cover live, you can catch Fever Ray’s stunning audio-visual show (including an all new live show designed by Andreas Nilsson for the below dates – more info next week) in Europe on the following dates:

6th Sep – O2 ABC, Glasgow, UK - Buy Tickets – W/ Zola Jesus
8th Sep – Brixton Academy, London, UK - Buy Tickets – W/ Zola Jesus
9th Sep – La Cigale, Paris, France - Buy Tickets – W/ Zola Jesus
10th Sep – Berlin Festival, Berlin, Germany - Buy Tickets
11-13th Sep – Bestival, Isle of Wight, UK - Buy Tickets

With 70-minutes of macabre lighting, terrifying costumes and sweet-smelling incense smoke this wasn’t just another tranced-out DJ set: it was a horror film-inspired installation piece that celebrated an extremely productive twelve months for Karin which included the Fever Ray releases of ‘Fever Ray’ and ‘Live in Lulea’, as well as The Knife in collaboration with Mt Sims and Planningtorock’s electronic opera ‘Tomorrow, in a Year’.

Fans of The Knife rejoice: when you order a physical copy of their brand new album Tomorrow, in a Year (in collaboration with Mt Sims and Planningtorock), JB Hifi will also throw in the entire digital album via instant download! That means that even though it’s not out physically until March 5, you’ll be able to listen to all of the tracks from this 2CD set straight away!

To pre-order the album from JB Hifi, click here. And for more info on the release, click here.

Commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to write the music for their opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of the Species’, The Knife decided to make this a collaborative process, working with artists Mt. Sims and Planningtorock for the first time, to capture the huge width of the Darwin and evolution theme.

They extensively researched Darwin related literature and articles, with Olof attending a field recording workshop in the Amazon to find inspiration and to record sounds. ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ is a unique musical project. Richard Dawkins’s gene trees have formed the basis of some of the musical composition, artificial sounds have been mixed with field recordings, with the music inspired by everything from the different stages of a bird learning its melody, to a song based on Darwin’s loving letters about his daughter Anne. These are compositions that challenge the conventional conception of opera music.

Pushing the experimental process further still, composer, choreographer, costume designer and set designer worked separately, only coming together 3 and a half months before the first performance of ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ in Copenhagen on the 2nd September 2009. Described as “shifting the position of operartic art in a single leap”, future performances of ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ are confirmed to take place in Athens (8-9 Jan), Stockholm (29 Jan-1 Feb), and Munster (5 June), with further dates to be announced.

Olof Dreijer says: “At first it was very difficult as we really didn’t know anything about opera. We’d never been to one. I didn’t even know what the word libretto meant. But after some studying, and just getting used to opera’s essence of pretentious and dramatic gestures, I found that there is a lot to learn and play with. In fact, our ignorance gave us a positive respectless approach to making opera. It took me about a year to become emotionally moved by an opera singer and now I really do. I really like the basic theatrical values of opera and the easy way it brings forward a narrative. We’ve approached this before in The Knife but never in such a clear way.”

Album ‘Tomorrow, in a Year’ will be released on 5th March 2010 on etcetc Music.

Stream single ‘Colouring Of Pigeons’ now from www.theknife.net.

2009 was a big year for etcetc: Lost Valentinos, Fever Ray,  Two Door Cinema Club, autoKratz, Duck Sauce, Cassius, Beni, Datarock, Jenny Wilson, MSTRKRFT, Jump Jump Dance Dance…we could go on. Now that it’s time to vote in the Triple J Hottest 100, may we present our extremely biased list of the top songs of ‘09:

First up is a creepy new podcast she prepared for Resident Advisor along with her friends Van Rivers (who recently remixed Jenny Wilson), The Subliminal Kid and Flash.

And here’s the equally spooky new video for Karin’s cover of Nick Cave’s Stranger than Kindness:

“Andersson holds her audience utterly spellbound” – Drowned In Sound

“…pulls you inexorably into the darkness of her world” - The Guardian

After a string of acclaimed live shows around Europe, Fever Ray is heading over to the US and Canada in September/October. Venues will include NYC’s iconic Webster Hall, where Andersson’s other project, The Knife, played two sold out dates for their US debut.

Karin will be supported by a 4 piece band, with visuals masterminded by Swedish multimedia artist Andreas Nilsson who designed The Knife’s live show and directed the creepy video for If I Had a Heart.

USA and Canada Tour Dates:

Sept 28 – Webster Hall, NYC, NY
Sept 29 – Webster Hall, NYC, NY
Oct 1 – Metropolis, Montreal
Oct 2 – Kool Haus, Toronto
Oct 3 – Metro, Chicago
Oct 5 – Grand Ballroom, San Francisco
Oct 7 – Henry Fonda Theater, Los Angeles

]]> http://www.etcetc.tv/fever-ray-coming-to-america/feed/ 0 http://www.etcetc.tv/the-knife-do-darwin/ http://www.etcetc.tv/the-knife-do-darwin/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:39:21 +0000 Eva http://www.etcetc.tv/?p=622 The Knife have helped to create 'Tomorrow, in a Year - A Darwin Opera'...]]>

Fever Ray’s Karin Dreijer Andersson has added yet another string to her already impressive bow.

Along with Danish performance collective, Hotel Pro Forma, Karin’s band The Knife have helped to create Tomorrow, in a Year – A Darwin Opera. No, it’s not a tribute to Australia’s youngest city. It’s an experimental performance piece featuring elements of electronica pop, classical opera and performance, commemorating the 150 year anniversary of Charles Darwin’s influential The Origin of Species. Premiering in Copenhagen in September, the production has no dates scheduled outside of Denmark as yet.

And as if that isn’t enough Euro-envy for our Fever Ray fans, may we direct you towards a few gushing live reviews from Fever Ray’s European dates.

10 Apr Motel Mozaique, Rotterdam
11 Apr The Royal Festival Hall, London
20 Jun Sonar By Night, Barcelona
03 Jul Roskilde Festival, Roskilde
04 Jul Arvika Festival, Arvika
12 Aug Öyafestivalen, Oslo, Oslo
14 Aug Way Out West, Göteborg
16 Aug Flow, Helsinki

Fever Ray Tour 2009 from Fever Ray on Vimeo.