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.

Fever Ray is the title, of both project and album, an evocation of the music’s sound, intense and anxious, yet luminous. 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).

Despite some upbeat moments (Triangle Walks, I’m Not Done), Fever Ray is starker, moodier, in places quite sombre – less an invasion, more a slow process of colonisation. Not that you’ll find anything so literal in the lyrics.

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.

“I think the music should be able to stand for itself without interfering, like what the artist looks like. That’s something you find out during the process, it’s a steady ongoing process about how you survive. When you work with music, you have the possibility to create magic.”

Opportunity taken, Fever Ray works its magic. Here’s your chance to fall under its spell.

Fever Ray’s debut single If I Had A Heart is available now on iTunes. The debut self-titled album is released on March 21st 2009 on etcetc, through Universal Music Australia.

Tracklisting:
1. If I Had A Heart
2. When I Grow Up
3. Dry & 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