Scary Swedish

Guardian July 10th

Half-glimpsed through laser-illuminated gloom, Karin stands motionless in a heavy robe, face painted to a deathly pallor, singing lines that less resemble the concerns of a conventional pop song than some eerie nightmare. "Who is that to come by my house?" she asks, as synths ring like wind chimes in some deserted Japanese garden. "Stands outside my window," she continues. "Sucking on the berries/Eats us out of house and home..." It's pop, of a fashion - but pop scripted by the Brothers Grimm, filmed by David Lynch, and never to appear on any Now compilation, lest it freak out children of the future who might wonder what the kids were boshing out in 2009.

"I have a problem with normal," says Karin - who is not, incidentally, a cave-dwelling witch, but a polite, well-adjusted mother of two from Gothenburg, Sweden. "Normal is something that we have created. All the things we have created around gender, how male and female artists should look, and sound."

Fever Ray