Incense was burning at the front of the stage while two sharp green laser rays cut through the thick fog, pulsating along the sinister, industrial purring of “If I had a Heart” that preceded Fever Ray’s arrival, last Thursday at Shepherds Bush Empire. The electronic festivities perfectly blend with the odd decoration on stage — vintage lampshades imported from your Swedish grandparents’ living room — and the grotesque, mysterious costumes worn by the band members. And how often do you see a woman playing the congas at an electronic concert?
I was really going to write a review for this fantastically surreal gig, but the Guardian’s review simply says exactly what I had in mind, conjuring such appropriately evocative images as “a pagan ceremony with lasers”.
![Fever Ray, at Shepherds Bush Empire, London](https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3481/3734996485_b4a208aff5.jpg)
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Her live band are only dimly visible, their faces painted or masked. They are equipped with keyboards and computers, rattles and shamanistic paraphernalia. In their midst is a strange, heavily cloaked figure which may be Andersson or may not – we cannot say for sure until this great cloth chrysalis releases a slender woman with long blond hair.
![Fever Ray, at Shepherds Bush Empire, London](https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2651/3735776628_b80265bda5.jpg)
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Untreated, as on the haunting “Keep the Streets Empty For Me”, Andersson’s voice evokes a demonic Björk; processed, it can become disconcertingly masculine, and part of the effect of seeing Fever Ray live lies in the disjunct between Andersson’s appearance and the ungodly sounds she produces.
![Fever Ray, at Shepherds Bush Empire, London](https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2556/3735786568_a1022e9558.jpg)
![Creative Commons License](/wp-content/plugins/photo-dropper/images/cc.png)
See the full Flickr set for this gig.