The Knife

Hiding behind black Venetian face masks with big bird beaks protruding eerily, Swedish duo The Knife create icy, eccentric electro-pop, full of retro synths and downbeat R&B grooves. With Karin Dreijer Andersson's indie rock outfit Honey Is Cool coming to an end in 1999, she took a musical change of direction when she heard the digital beats and experiments her younger brother Olof was producing in his Stockholm bedroom. Their commercial breakthrough came when Jose Gonzalez's acoustic guitar cover of their track Heartbeats was used in an advertising campaign by Sony and was recognised around the world. It propelled second album Deep Cuts (2003) to great critical acclaim and was named in Rolling Stone magazine's list of best tracks of the 2000s, before follow-up Silent Shout (2006) topped the Swedish charts and helped the band win seven Scandinavian Grammis Awards. The pair went on to create a soundtrack to the Danish opera Tomorrow, In A Year with Mt. Simms and Planningtorock, before fourth album Shaking The Habitual (2013) raged with a melting pot of political ideas from feminist theory, environmental issues and wealth equality to a backdrop of bold, experimental electro and art house, new wave weirdness.