- The Knife cofounder Karin Dreijer zeroes in on sex and desire on their captivating third—and best—album.
- On their third album, Radical Romantics, Stockholm musician Karin Dreijer confronts a child who bullied their kid, Lydia Tár-style. Dreijer was persuaded to change the name of the bully in question because their "friend’s first response was that they had never heard a song where an adult threatens to hurt a child before." The song, which is even more bizarrely co-produced by Nine Inch Nails, careens with the kind of special, seething anger you can only find in a parent. As Dreijer sings, "One day we might come after you / Taking back what's ours / And then we cut, cut, cut, cut," their lips curl around the consonants as if each sound were its own physical blow.
The blustering "Even It Out" is one of many uncharacteristically direct songs on Dreijer's new album as Fever Ray, Radical Romantics. Since starting The Knife with their brother Olof Dreijer in 1999, Dreijer's music has grown stranger, more cryptic and more androgynous. Following their split from the duo in 2014, the Fever Ray album Plunge presented a major breakthrough for Dreijer. They came out as queer, got divorced and went into the world as a whole new person, singing bracingly about sex and desire, themes that continue on Radical Romantics in more fraught, complex ways. The album digs deeper than surface-level romance to discuss frustration, obsession, violence and confusion, emotional awakenings after sexual ones. On the most fully realized vision of the Fever Ray project yet, Dreijer unspools some of their best lyrics and pop songs since The Knife's 2007 smash "Heartbeats.
There's the palpable sexiness on tracks like "Shiver," where Dreijer's androgynous bellowing—"Killer skies / thick thighs"—delights in shades of the corporeal, before they add "Some girls will make you blush / Some girls will make you shiver." The words, and the seismic space between their accompanying sounds, mirror the goosebumps shudder of feeling someone's touch for the first time, and tendrils of bagpipe-like synth and huge, synthetic timpanis underline the strange mix of coquettishness and domination at its core. There's a similar dualism to the melancholy "Tapping Fingers," where Dreijer wills their limbs to grow longer so they can touch an out-of-reach lover. If any image sums up Dreijer's uniquely fatalistic but optimistic grasp of human connection, it's that.
The production on Radical Romantics is luxurious and stylistically adventurous. "Kandy" is a multicoloured symphony of bright, padded sounds, like a funhouse mirror version of Siouxsie And The Banshee's "Hong Kong Garden," matching the desire for submission reflected in the lyrics: "She laid me down and whispered / All girls want Kandy." The giddy "Carbon Dioxide," co-produced by Bristol artist Vessel, pairs a driving techno rhythm with discordant stabbing strings—because falling in love is exhilarating, but it's also terrifying. And Lisbon producer Nídia helps out on "Looking For A Ghost," boosting the bottom-end and adding a kizomba-like lilt, a mournful touch for a song about the eternal yearning for a partner, whether or not that person you're thinking of is real or just a passing presence. Here, Dreijer also contributes the album's cutest line: "You call me smoothie / I call you bird seed."
Dreijer's vocal performance touches on all aspects of their career, from the deeper tones of early Fever Ray to The Knife's queasy helium choruses. But their peculiar array of effects and pitch-shifting has existed for so long that it doesn't sound strange to hear this alien-like presence sing about sex, pet names and having children who go to high-school. It's a testament to the world that Dreijer has built since debuting with The Knife in the early '00s. They inhabit a gingerbread house made of plastic and viscera for us to explore, making the familiar pleasures even more pleasurable. You can practically rub your fingers along the deep, powdery bass synth on "New Utensils," and the way Dreijer's vocals sublimate into that familiar high-pitched squeal on "Looking For A Ghost" takes the song to a whole new level, like a long-buried desire finally emerging.
Still, the most haunting track on Radical Romantics is the odd one out. The album's opener and lead single, "What They Call Us," reunites Dreijer with their brother Olof, and it sounds more like a Knife cut than the rest of the LP. The song took many forms over the years, written and adapted for two different movies, before taking its place at the front of Radical Romantics. Slow and brooding, Dreijer sounds unusually sinister, resigned to something extreme: "First I'd like to say that I'm sorry / I've done all the tricks that I can."
It's tempting to read many different narratives into the melodramatic, end-of-the-world lyrics of "What They Call Us," but the most cutting is the chorus: "Did you hear what they call us?" It's evocative and frightening, bringing to mind the image of Dreijer holding someone close, protecting them from the evils of the rest of the world. The line has a wider resonance at a time when queerness, when even the act of being different, is under fire, and coming from a queer musical icon, non-binary mother and once-shadowy persona, it feels all the more powerful and defiant. It's an unusual invite into their world that feels like solidarity. "I've got a plan that's flexible," they sing, and that flexibility is what makes Fever Ray truly radical—the spectrum of desire, emotion, fear, joy, even the pitch of the human voice. Nothing's sacred and nothing's certain, and that's both thrilling and uneasy. "Just don't stop anywhere," Dreijer warns.
Tracklist01. What They Call Us
02. Shiver
03. New Utensils
04. Kandy
05. Even It Out
06. Looking For A Ghost
07. Carbon Dioxide
08. North
09. Tapping Fingers
10. Bottom Of The Ocean