Fever Ray 'Mercy Street' – 7″ single details revealed

Having performed spellbinding live covers of well-loved tracks by artists as varied as Nick Cave, Vashti Bunyan and Peter Gabriel while touring the eponymous debut solo album, Fever Ray’s cover of the latter’s ‘Mercy Street’ is now set for release in the UK on September 6 on covetable limited edition 7″ and download through Rabid Records. The 7” single will include album track ‘Dry and Dusty’.

Gabriel wrote ‘Mercy Street’ about influential Pulitzer Prize winning American poet Anne Sexton, with the track taking its title from her 1969 play of the same name. The cover is chillingly atmospheric, all driving beats and Dreijer Andersson’s crystalline vocals imploring us to “wait until darkness comes”. In Karin’s own words:

“It’s an interpretation. We made it more intense and faster to fit our eccentric percussionists and energetic live musicians. It is a monotone track but we worked with the dynamics trying to make it sparkle. I listened to it a lot when I was around 15, and it still moves me. It made me start reading Anne Sexton too.”

For those who have yet to experience the ‘Mercy Street’ cover live, you can catch Fever Ray’s stunning audio-visual show in Europe – art directed by long term collaborator Andreas Nilsson – on the following dates:

September
5th – Electric Picnic, Dublin, Ireland
6th – O2 ABC, Glasgow
8th – Brixton Academy, London
9th – Olympia, Paris, France
10th – Berlin Festival, Berlin, Germany
12th – Bestival, Isle of Wight

This short tour is the very last chance to see Fever Ray performing the debut album.