It wasn’t that long ago when Karin Dreijer Andersson, one-half of the duo The Knife, was blessed with the kind of praise that most independent artists would kill for. Pitchfork named their album Silent Shout one of the best records of 2006 and the Swedish recording industry agreed by providing the Dreijer siblings with a total of six awards at the Swedish equivalent of the Grammys.
At that moment, the idea of playing ball should have been the first priority of the band. Instead, the two sent friends dressed up in gorilla costumes to collect their prize (a protest of Sweden’s Caucasian-heavy music scene) and then promptly went on hiatus.
During this time, Karin gave birth to her second child and while most parents of newborns become mentally numb during the months of ensuing sleep deprivation, Andersson used her somnambulist hours to program beats and put the beginning touches of a solo project on to her hard drive.