Artist: Fever Ray
Title: Radical Romantics
Released: 10th March 2023
In the world of Radical Romantics, Fever Ray presents their struggle with love, or to be precise, the myth of love. Following 2017’s Plunge, Radical Romantics speaks to both the heart and the head, the dance floor and the bedroom. Dreijer is one of pop’s true visionaries, and in their hands, crude and familiar clay is twisted into endlessly beautiful and terrible forms that balance strength with vulnerability, anxiety with safety. Join us as we delve into the creative process behind ‘radical romantics’ and the visionary mind of fever ray.
so, first off, what’s it like working with your brother again?
“Yes, it’s been really fun. We started just with like one or two tracks to see how it would turn out and it was really nice to work with him again. it’s quite different though, from when we worked with the knife because that was like all of us, both of us doing everything together. Now i had already sort of done sketches, handwritten lyrics and melodies and stuff, so it was a bit of a different process, but it was really nice. ”
what made you decide to sort of go back to that sound to work with him, to approach it musically?
“Normally i start to write the songs myself when i do fever ray, that stuff, and then i have always collaborated with other people to finalise the production because i don’t have much patience and i lose focus very easily. So for the production part, it’s really nice to collaborate with others. he had moved back from berlin and we had built studios together and it was the pandemic, so it was very convenient also because we were at the same place. ”
what’s a radical romantic and how does that idea sort of inform your writing on this?
“yeah, it’s something that i thought of when i was finished with the album, i was working with my friend martin falck, who is doing all the visuals and we talked about what is it really, what kind of album is it really? we said it’s probably some kind of love songs. we started to talk about what kind of character is going to perform this and to perform in the videos, and what we felt was a radical way of seeing romance is to try to find out about your own needs in love and to accept them and then also to communicate them. That is sort of what we are playing with in the characters and that’s how the title came up as well. ”
could you tell us a bit more about the characters and you feature?
“yeah, they are different sides of different mental states, i would say. They come in different shapes and forms and they sometimes blend into each other. We try to find characters that we feel tell the story in a good way. ”
you’ve always had some really incredible visual aesthetics and you mentioned earlier working on some visuals for this album. could you tell us a little bit about what your kind of process was for this album and bringing it to life on music videos and artwork and all the rest?
“yeah, it’s something that i thought of when i was finished with the album, i was working with my friend martin falck, who is doing all the visuals and we talked about what is it really, what kind of album is it really? we said it’s probably some kind of love songs. we started to talk about what kind of character is going to perform this and to perform in the videos, and what we felt was a radical way of seeing romance is to try to find out about your own needs in love and to accept them and then also to communicate with them. That is sort of what we are playing with in the characters and that’s how the title came up too. ”
you’ve got a ton of shows coming up this year. i was wondering if you can tell us about how you go about bringing the album to the stage as well?
“i worked this time with a musician and producer called minna koivisto, they are from finland and we have made a lot of new versions of older material and we’ve also put together a band and made all the arrangements and stuff. So there’s a few people whom i worked with on the last live show and there’s a few new ones. ”
anywhere in particular you’re looking forward to playing?
“i worked this time with a musician and producer called minna koivisto, they are from finland and we have made a lot of new versions of older material and we’ve also put together a band and made all the arrangements and stuff. So there’s a few people whom i worked with on the last live show and there’s a few new ones. ”
Radical Romantics is out now on CD & LP!
