Last week, Stockholm’s Niki & The Dove hit the UK for their first proper tour (following a meagre support slot at London’s The Lexington’s Scandinavian/Nordic night, Ja Ja Ja, last winter). Their sets were pretty much nothing short of incredible, and you can read Rob Webb raving about their appearance at Liverpool’s Sound City in this week’s magazine.
I went to see them in London, at former fetish club Electrowerkz, where Malin and Gustaf were flanked by Magnus, their touring drummer, two dancers (who were so terrible that they pretty much became brilliant), feathers, glitter, and lashings of gutsy Swedish pop chops. Yeah, The Knife comparisons are inevitable due to Malin’s gorgeously inflected howl and their predilection for choppy cold wave synths, but there’s also the lavish spectacle of Prince in his ‘Purple Rain’ heyday, Cindi Lauper’s campy brilliance, and massive POP HITS that could fill entire stadiums. They were so freaking amazing that I decided to go to Brighton to see them again two days later, which was just as great – no dancers this time, but a wealth of new material and crazy beatboxing from Malin – a la Camille – made the train fare more than worth the while.
I’m now completely obsessed, in that I NEED TO SEE THEM FIVE TIMES IN A WEEK way that all the best new bands should leave you feeling. They’re not back here until June – and even then they’ve only one date at Rockness scheduled, though fingers crossed for more – but in the meantime, there’s a blinding live set from Lejonkulan (which aptly translates to Lion’s Den) in Stockholm on Soundcloud as uploaded by gimmieindie.se, an online radio station. It features four new songs – ‘Bells’, ‘Fast Economy’, and a couple of piano ballads, the likes of which we haven’t heard from Niki & The Dove thus far: the Brill Building-tinged ‘The Beach’ and ‘Manon’. You can stream or download it, so I thoroughly recommend getting it on in your bedroom, turning the lights off, daubing yourself in glitter and feathers, and getting into the swing of pure unabated euphoria ready for next time Malin and Gustaf fly over.
Download Niki & The Doves’ live set from Lejonkulan here: