It's been five years since Fever Ray released their last album, Plunge. There was a glimmer of hope that Karin Dreijer had another full-length up their sleeve following their return last month with the single "What They Call Us." Today, that hope is confirmed with the announcement of their new album Radical Romantics that's out March 10 via Mute. They've also shared another track called "Carbon Dioxide" that was co-produced by experimental artist Vessel.
The new single is an effervescent collision of synths and visceral lyricism about love's complicated, contradictory, and consuming nature. “I just think that the direction could be nice, happy, full of everything, extra everything,” Dreijer said during the song’s manifestation. Vessel added, “‘Carbon Dioxide,’ a compound which, being defined by its bond with oxygen, seems to me like a neat chemical expression of the essential compassion that the conditions for life on our planet depend. Compassion and joy; happiness guarded from sentimentality by the absurd and the grotesque; the extra-everything of unconstrained nature.”
Radical Romantics first started to come together in the fall of 2019 with Dreijer's brother (and The Knife bandmate) Olof in the Stockholm studio they built together, marking the first time the siblings produced and wrote together in eight years. Other collaborators on the record include Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Portuguese DJ and producer Nídia, Johannes Berglund, and Peder Mannerfelt and Pär Grindvik’s technicolor dance project Aasthma. The visuals for Radical Romantics were created with long-time collaborator Martin Falck.
Listen to "Carbon Dioxide" below (I'll be thinking about the lyric "Sipping a sparkling tumor / Wish me courage, strength, and a sense of humor," for the foreseeable future), and pre-order Radical Romantics here.
