Lasers, Smoke And Witchcraft With Fever Ray

By Veronica Murtagh in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 5, 2009 7:40PM

Somber electronic droning greeted our ears as we entered the low light of the Metro Saturday night for the sold out Chicago appearance of Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife's newest project, Fever Ray. Andersson channeled the occult, burying the audience beneath a dense fog of smoke penetrable only by the geometric beams of light slicing through the air. Mystery, intrigue and awe were the themes of the evening as we joined the rest of the audience with mouths agape, soaking in sensory overload.

We initially struggled to latch on to Fever Ray, finding Andersson's new project too similar to The Knife. It's easy to get lost in the ghostly echoes, moans and whirrs that run rampant through the material of both acts, tuning out the subtle elements that differentiate. Heavy use of tribal rhythm marked a live show that transported the crowd through an audiovisual journey into the organic. Engulfed in a suit resembling a totem creature and barely visible underneath the pitch black smoke, Andersson croaked and moaned over rainsticks, wood blocks, kettle and bongo drums like a lost traveler treading through mud in a fairytale forest. The sounds of water, thunder, lightning, witchcraft and chaos encircled Andersson's impossibly crisp vocals, detaching the audience from reality's foothold. The show was packed elbow to elbow, but we felt alone, stranded in a haunted mist miles from civilization.

The lighting at the show was as dramatic as the music itself. Victorian shaded lamps dotted the stage and pulsed in time to the beats. Rotating spotlights shot through the air like desperate rescuers in the night, but still couldn't illuminate the band to visibility. The lamps and spotlights were engaging on their own, but it was Fever Ray's use of lasers that provided the standout visual memories for the evening. Alternating between sweeps of luminescence swirled with smoke and single, angular beams that formed live geometry, at some point every face in the crowd gave up on catching a glimpse of the shrouded stage and drifted away, immersed in a light show with a live soundtrack.

To discuss at length the tracks that composed Fever Ray's setlist would be misrepresenting the evening. The music was merely one element at play in a multi-layered, skillfully executed journey through the deepest recesses of Karin Andersson's imagination.