fever ray

On my birthday trip record shopping I bought Fever Ray. At first, I couldn’t find Karin Dreijer Andersson quite so punchy and wonderful as The Knife, like the Knife with something missing, which of course, is exactly what she is.  And yet, with repeated listens I’ve found the beauty is subtler, more detailed and fascinating than the Knife. I haven’t found it instantly loveable, or loveable at all in fact -  it’s a dark insight into a shadowy and surreal psyche. And yet I’ve become mesmerised by this pervading darkness, confessionals and streams of consciousness wrapped in slick electronics and deep down autotuned vocals, blowing in from icy plains.

Since the release, there’s been a good few remixes knocking about, and they’ve got me thinking. Each one of those featured below takes a distinct approach in their dealing with the track. Fuck Buttons thicken the soup, not digressing from the style already in evidence. They conform to their characteristic euphoric synths-over-synths sound, which flows seamlessly with Fever Ray’s acutely electronic vibe.

Fever Ray – If I Had A Heart (Fuck Buttons remix)

Dan Lissvik, of Studio however, picks up on an entirely different angle. The frightened side of the vocals is juxtaposed against pan pipes and a slow balaeric grind, drawing out the hopefulness you never realised was there; langorously plucking shards of light-filled fragments to shape into curling, glowing sandcastles.

Fever Ray – When I Grow Up (Version by Lissvik)

Tiga on the other hand, pits the track against itself, in a hard driving beat where vocals attack instrumentation. It is jerky and fractious, the vocals are transformed from a blurry paranoia to a fidgeting panic, as if strapped down to the 4-4 beat. I love this, it’s wonderfully uncomfortable.  

Fever Ray – Traingle Walks (Tiga’s 1-2-3-4 remix)

It’s great to see how these different remixes all pick out entirely different moods, despite the album’s sonic coherence. It adds a depth to the standalone album I didn’t appreciate before – a complexity I hadn’t fully recognised, which means that the three different outcomes above are all entirely in keeping.