- Kentish Town's HMV Forum—a mid-sized art-deco former cinema with a reputation for ropey acoustics—might seem a slightly underwhelming setting for what The Knife's Karin Dreijer Andersson says will be the last show she ever plays in her year-defining Fever Ray guise. It would be out of character for the enigmatic Swede to make a bigger deal of this than necessary, though, and, given her extreme reticence to play live with The Knife, she's probably just glad the 50 or so dates she's played in Europe and North America this year are now over, despite the pleasure they've given.
As it turned out, the Forum was a perfectly adequate place to conclude things, with the exquisite noises made by Andresson and her four-piece band largely triumphing over the venue's sonic limitations. Following an enchanting, stripped-down support set from the cello-wielding Hildur Gudnadottir, of múm, the headdress-clad Andersson and her band opened with the foreboding synthoid rumble of "If I Had a Heart," also the album opener, and as accurate a guide to the claustrophobic world of maternal trepidation to come in the live show as it was on the record.
The Fever Ray album is such a perfectly realised piece of work that you might imagine no live version could add anything to the songs, and it is true that at times this show resembles the record with a compelling stage and laser show added on. However, on the more percussion-heavy tracks in particular ("Now's The Only Time I Know," "Coconut," the astonishing cover of Nick Cave's "Stranger Than Kindness"), the live element added such stunning, quasi-ritualistic impact that the chills passing down my spine felt like the onset of some winter virus. Andersson's voice was also an intriguing live proposition; alternately strong and slightly broken, its small inconsistencies adding to the music's strange brittleness and fragility.
With the tumbling percussion and final synth death-rattle of album closer "Coconut," Andersson took herself away with no encore, perhaps never to return in this form. Whatever she decides to do next—racing muscle cars in the US and writing the score for a Danish opera seem to be the short-term plans—now would seem an opportune moment to simply sit back and be thankful that such a singular talent exists at all.