The Knife

electronic

The Knife was an electronic duo from Gothenburg, Sweden formed in 1999. The band consisted of siblings Karin Dreijer (formerly of Honey is Cool, now Fever Ray) and Olof Dreijer (Oni Ayhun) - who also run their own record company, Rabid Records. Their lyrics were often political and left-leaning, involving strong critique of capitalism, colonialism and discrimination, and expressing support for causes including but not limited to queer rights, feminism and gender politics. They rarely made public appearances and in promotional photos often wore bird's beak masks reminiscent of the masks worn by medieval plague doctors. The Knife won a Swedish Grammy award for best pop group of the year 2003, but they boycotted the ceremony by sending two representatives of another artist group dressed as gorillas with the number 50 written on their costumes, apparently as a protest against male dominance within the music industry. Their album Deep Cuts was also nominated for a Swedish Grammy as the best record of the year 2003, although that award went to The Cardigans. It was also in 2003 that the The Knife was featured as Artist of the Week at HitQuarters, which helped them gain greater attention in the worldwide music community. The group became prominent in late 2005 when José González covered Heartbeats on his 2003 album, Veneer. The song was used by Sony in a commercial for Bravia television sets, and released as a single in early 2006. The group commented on this in a Dagens Nyheter...