Fever Ray Live

Attempting to put Fever Ray’s live show into words is a bit like trying to tell someone about the weird dream you had last night. It’s virtually impossible to describe the Swedish banshee’s visual and sonic spectacle and do it any kind of justice.

Flanked by her band in their array of outlandish costumes, Fever Ray – The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson – cut an ominous figure in the middle of the stage; like a modern day Carrie, complete with blood dripping down her face. Her haunting, distorted vocals straddled sparse beats with an ethereal fragility on ‘Keep The Streets Empty For Me’ and ‘Triangle Walks’, while ‘Concrete Walls’ sounded just as foreboding and claustrophobic as it does on record.

Each track had its own choreography of lights, which were nothing short of stunning. Lasers ricocheted across the venue and antique table lamps glowed intermittently, like a luminous ballet. The production, coupled with Fever Ray’s other-worldy sounds, transformed Webster Hall into another planet.

A mesmerising, sensory feast that, like the weird dream you had last night, doesn’t make much sense out of context.

Words by Rachael Wright
Photos by Betsy Blundell