How do we love thee, Fever Ray? Let us count the ways: their eponymous debut album predicted our ongoing love affair with witchcraft and pagan-spiritual female power, as well as making natty old lampshades into the eeriest stage props ever; as one half of The Knife, Karin Dreijer Andersson simultaneously creeped us out and made us dance with 2004 single Heartbeats and then 2006 album Silent Shout; introduced gender theorist Judith Butler to legions of music fans in interviews for 2013’s weird, frenetic and sometimes brutal Shaking The Habitual; and now they have made the Blade Runner sequel we needed, after the real sequel turned out to be a misogynistic mess.
Well, get ready to embrace demonic kink, because Fever Ray has reappeared after eight years, pretty much out of the blue (a few teasers appeared online four days ago), to let us know that we should think about getting into dystopian BDSM over the next few years. As is obvious by now, the apocalypse is nigh, and our smartphones have basically turned us into replicants anyway, so let us welcome the smoke-filled, neon-lit Blade Runner-scape of Fever Ray’s brave new world. There are rain drenched abandoned streets lit only by neon shop signs, humans revived by plugging cables in like machines, rubberised clothes, radical tea parties and a glowstick orgy.
There’s no official statement with the release, but a teaser video for the new project includes text that may shed some light: “Sadist, empathetic switch seeks same. For hours and hours of sharing: ideas, skin warmth, breath, politics, dreams, and body fluids,” it begins. “It’s been eight years and much has been learned and unlearned. Eight years of loving and being loved,” it continues, referencing the gap between this new release and Fever Ray’s debut album. “Let’s embrace our deepest fears together, let’s throw ourselves into whatever is out there waiting for us, let’s yes to all [sic].”
Sonically, the track returns to the frenetic electronic beats and bleeps of Silent Shout, with a video game pace and pop sensibility. The lyrics range from the sensual, “I know you like tangerine / And your kiss is sweet and creamy,” to the straightforward, “Your lips, warm and fuzzy / I want to run my fingers up your pussy”. It makes St Vincent’s fetishistic pink interview box seem like training for whatever terrifying delights lie in store for the intrepid journalists sent to unravel the new mood of Fever Ray, if they’re lucky enough to get the chance.