Music, Style & Culture

Class Of 2012: Niki & The Dove

We meet Niki & The Dove in a cold, leafy park in North London.

Perfectionism is such a cliché, but that's exactly what we're inclined to accuse Niki & The Dove of when we meet them in a cold, leafy park in North London. Words: Harriet Jennings. Photos: Adrian Nettleship.

The duo (twos are very in this season) consisting of Malin Dahlstrom and Gustaf Karlof are preparing to go on stage at Camden's Koko, a venue that seems to have captured their collective imagination. "It looks so Sherlock Holmes; it must be very old,” swoons Malin, famed for seeking inspiration in unlikely places. The band's previous two EPs, 'The Fox' and 'The Drummer', take on themes of their own: nature and the desert respectively.

Carrying more bags than you would imagine her tiny frame could handle, frontwoman Malin is a real enigma, seeming simultaneously friendly and hard to reach, but with an obvious sense of determination. She grins excitedly at Gustaf as we begin the interview, and is more than happy for him to take the lead in our conversation, a rapid u-turn on the previous press tactics that have portrayed her as the main attraction in the band. “I think that if the last EP has a theme of the desert and our different interpretations of the metaphor, then the album is more of a patchwork,” she explains. “It is a collage. If you zoom out, there might be a pattern, you might find it.”

The pair are currently working on their debut full-length with fellow Swede Elof Loelv, tackling the production duties together as a trio, a fact that Karlof is keen to cement in our minds. With the band's writing habits contradicted in online reports, it's easy to understand why they might be so particular about such questions, and they eagerly assure us that they both contribute to writing new material. “We have two tracks left to record in November now and then it's supposed to be finished,” Gustaf says, fidgeting slightly and clearly agitated at the lack of completion. “The album is planned for March, and I really hope it is ready for March,” explains Malin, tentatively.

The duo's hesitation to talk about their forthcoming release is quite obvious, playing up to their ultimately mysterious image - something they're both fully committed to cultivating. “I wouldn't want to describe our music,” Malin says when pushed for more information of the forthcoming record's sound. “But if we had to describe it, because we do get asked this question a lot,” Gustaf sighs, rescuing his bandmate, “in a boring way, it's a lot of acoustic percussion and quite a lot of electronic harmonies on top of that, with some melodies.

"It's just melodic, it's not static. We like melodies. A lot of music today is focussed on other things, a lot of music has a steady beat in a minimalistic way and a minimalistic melody and they want to describe something else.” Speaking of descriptions, we ask about the "Pagan" label that the band's EPs have attracted. “I'm not surprised that they call it Pagan,” Malin whispers. “It isn't Pagan, but I'm not surprised. It's just labelling. Everyone tries to do that with their lives.”

“People love to compare things to other things,” Gustaf continues. “It's amazing how 90% of people talk about how much sounds like other music. Why can't you just listen to music for what it is? People always have to compare it to other things. It must be a psychological thing with that person, or just with humanity!”

“People struggle to find structure, I think,” poses Malin. “Because they can't describe the music they have to compare it to other things and that's their way of describing it. I think it's kind of shallow actually. I wish they could just describe our music or just listen to the music and describe it with words, but it is a difficult thing. I think that's why there is music; it can communicate things that words cannot.”

And whilst communication might not be their strong point, Niki & The Dove have been very clear to convey exactly what they do and do not want to their record label, Mercury. “When we wrote the deal, it was very important for us to have the creative freedom,” Gustaf asserts. “We were very determined about that, it was one of the first things we said. They can have opinions but we have the last word. For example, with the instrumental songs on 'The Drummer' EP, they [Mercury] were a little doubtful of that because they thought it was a bit strange.”

“We wanted to have them because we wanted to work through the theme,” Malin smiles. “It is a thematic EP and to do that, we needed those three tracks on it. We decided to keep them and I love that we did it.” So what decisions exactly are their label permitted to make? Touring, as it happens, which is something the band are likely to be doing a lot of next year. “We've had a nice time on a support tour and on a headline tour too. But those are the decisions that the label can make,” concludes Gustaf.

“We heard something about it last night but that was just the first discussion about it,” Malin says, hinting at a headline tour. “But let's hope for one for my sake anyway, I'd like to do one,” she finishes. And with that, our time together comes to a close, and I leave them playing with a stranger's dog. I think they prefer his attention anyway, he asks fewer difficult questions.



Taken from the Winter 2011 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.