* En anglais uniquement
The solo project of
the Knife's
Karin Dreijer,
Fever Ray broadens and deepens the shape-shifting electronic pop of their former group, allowing them to explore different identities -- and their meanings -- even more fully with their music and imagery. On 2009's
Fever Ray,
Dreijer's moody character sketches used the icy atmospheres and pitch-shifted vocals they perfected with
the Knife in more personal and intimate ways. On 2017's fiery
Plunge, they delivered frequently thrilling manifestos on queerness, politics, and desire. With each
Fever Ray release,
Dreijer pushes artistic boundaries, questions society's limitations, and challenges listeners.
Born in Gothenburg, Sweden,
Dreijer began playing guitar at age ten. After working as a web designer, in the early '90s they founded the band
Honey Is Cool, who released several EPs and a pair of albums (1997's Crazy Love and 1999's Early Morning Are You Working?) before calling it quits in 2000. Following the group's disbandment,
Dreijer focused their energy on
the Knife, the electro-pop project they formed with their brother
Olof in 1999. With 2001's
The Knife, 2003's
Deep Cuts, and 2006's
Silent Shout,
the Knife became one of the most musically and visually inventive acts of the 2000s, thanks to their vivid, sometimes unsettling songs and flair for striking costumes and design.
Dreijer began working on
Fever Ray after they had their second child and
the Knife finished the
Silent Shout tour. After working on demos and song ideas on their own, they then collaborated with producer
Christoffer Berg, who had mixed
the Knife's music. Word of the project surfaced in mid-2008 and the first music, an instrumental version of "If I Had a Heart," appeared on
Fever Ray's MySpace page a few months later.
Fever Ray was available in January 2009 as a digital download, and the album was physically released that March. After
Fever Ray's release,
Dreijer juggled a number of different projects. Later in 2009, they wrote the music for Dirty Diaries, an anthology of feminist pornographic short films. They also returned to
the Knife for Tomorrow, In a Year, an opera inspired by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species that also featured
Mt. Sims and
Planningtorock; its music was released in 2010. The following year,
Dreijer contributed the song "The Wolf" to the film
Red Riding Hood and composed the score for a stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's 1968 horror film Hour of the Wolf.
After
the Knife released 2013's
Shaking the Habitual and went on an extensive tour captured by 2014's
Shaken-Up Versions, the duo disbanded. Along with working on
Fever Ray material, in 2016
Dreijer composed and produced the music for the play Vahák. In 2017, they issued the
Fever Ray single "To the Moon and Back" shortly before the surprise release of October's full-length
Plunge (the album received a physical release in February 2018). At that year's Swedish Grammys,
Dreijer and the rest of the production team behind
Plunge won the Producer of the Year award. The 2019 concert album
Live at Troxy documented
Plunge's ambitious live show, which featured
Dreijer working with many collaborators who are female or non-binary and over the age of 40. ~ Heather Phares