Olof Dreijer on Dance Music, Palestine, and the Pitfalls of Mysticism

This is a free post from Larry Fitzmaurice's Last Donut of the Night newsletter. Paid subscribers get a paid-only Baker's Dozen every week featuring music I've been listening to and some critical observations around it. I'm running a 30% off sale for annual subscriptions, which you can grab here while it lasts.

Ladyland Festival is going down in Greenpoint this weekend, and I do believe it's one of the best lineups NYC-based or otherwise that I've seen in quite some time...still some tix available if you haven't grabbed yours yet, I'll be there both nights, so if you see me, say hi (or not, whatever works for you).

In conjunction with the fest, I did a couple of interviews with some of the good folks on the lineup.  Yesterday I had Blue Hawaii on here, and today it's living legend Olof Dreijer, who's obviously very well-known for being one-half of the iconic duo the Knife and has been putting out a string of incredible solo releases this year, along with some very lively performances alongside collaborator Diva Cruz, and the pair have a collaborative EP that's out now via Dekmantel too. As a somewhat-elder-millennial, the Knife were larger than life to me throughout their career, so I was obviously very happy to have Olof on a convo earlier this week, and I hope you enjoy reading it:

Your publicist mentioned you were recovering from COVID. How are you doing?
I'm feeling better. I was a bit stressed I wouldn't get better, but I'm good, so it's all good. I had mild COVID this time, I think.

How many times have you had it at this point?
I think this is the second or perhaps the third. I forgot. How about you?

I still haven't had it.
Oh, good.

I've gotten lucky, but I know some people too who have gotten it for the first time and very recently. So, I don't know. We'll see. I had a friend who got it very recently for the third or fourth time and said it was the worst he's ever had it.
It's so weird that it can still be so strong.

Musicians have been talking about the act of touring and the safety of it all amidst COVID. How have you felt about that as you've been playing shows over the last year or so?
I haven't thought too much about it. I mean, of course, it's something you think about. You're more at risk when you see a lot of people. But I'm thinking, comparatively, there are people working in the subways and the taxis. I mean, they are just so much more fragile.

How was lockdown for you in Stockholm?
I'm happy that I was here, in that sense. But it was a life-changing experience for everybody. I was lucky that I could work on music, and so grateful that I have the job I have. I'm working alone, and I have a studio that I can bike to. But it was a very humbling experience, to say the least.

Is that a Príncipe Discos shirt you're wearing?
Yeah, exactly, yes. Do you like this label?

They're one of the most vital labels around right now.
Incredible music. [Larry's cat enters the webcam view] Also, what a cute cat you have. What is her name?

Panda.
Ah, yes, very good name.

She loves to pop in for her interviews and say hello. But it's interesting you're wearing that shirt, because something especially appealing to me about this run of releases you've put out this year is the rhythmic patterns you've been embracing—especially with regard to "Brujas," which is very Príncipe-esque to me. Talk to me about your appreciation of the label. Everybody I know who's in the know like just loves everything they're putting out.
Yeah, I think they are really moving things forward. I'm very interested in stuff that lays between swing, groove, and 6/8 time, which is basically a lot of samba and a lot of different Brazilian grooves. Many of the origins of the artists who produce for Príncipe have their origins in Mozambique and Angola, and they are a big inspiration. But, as with all inspiration, I interpret it and try to do something else.

I just kind of realized during the last year that, without thinking about it, one super big influence for me that reprogrammed my sense of rhythm is a Tunisian Sufi music called Stambeli, or Gnawa in Morocco. I worked with a friend from Tunisia, Houeida Hedfi, where I produced her music and played percussion in her band. When I played the percussion there, it took me a long time to learn. But it set some kind of ground for thinking about what can be groovy, and that sometimes has some similarities to samba groove, so it's a lot of different things going on.

Tell me about learning new instruments and ways of playing. How is the experience of learning something new for you?
I constantly learn new instruments, but only at quite simple levels [Laughs], because I can record them and then make it better on the computer. But I learn a lot of instruments, and that's super fun, because when I learn something it also makes me think about how I program electronic sounds in the computer. Usually, I learn a new instrument, record that, and maybe convert that into MIDI. So the way I would play that instrument is influencing how the electronic sounds are programmed also. It's something I do all the time.

I want to talk to you more broadly about your practice of only playing festivals where there's at least a 50-50 equal representation in terms of male/non-male artists. I've always admired you for many reasons, but that's one of them. Tell me about whether you've received any pushback over the years because of that.
I forget when I started with that—before 2010, or so. Around then, I was laughed at and ridiculed a bit. The most common answer would be, "We can't do that, because we follow a certain genre." The idea of a genre would be the gatekeeper. [Celebratory balloons suddenly appear across Olof's screen] Oh, wow, there's balloons! [Laughs] Did I do that?

I think you might have, yeah. That's pretty funny.
How did that happen? I have no idea. It's magic. [Laughs] Anyway, so that was going on a lot. I basically wouldn't perform at gigs when they couldn't do that. I had like a a bit of a break up until recently with doing my solo stuff, and today, basically without asking, the new booking agent I work with already had that as a clause in the agreement with promoters, which is amazing. It has been good at all these gigs. Now, I don't even count like that, because the representation is just so much better—but this is also in the context of where I'm being booked.

When I look outside...I mean, I just saw some posters the other day here in Stockholm of some typically mainstream house music event, and everybody was white. 20 people! I think that's a bit striking. But a lot has happened.

You and Karin were supporters of the BDS movement very early in your careers as well. Attitudes towards are finally changing Palestinian liberation are finally changing in a way that they really weren't even several years ago, but I'm curious to hear you talk about your history of vocalizing support. Obviously, there's been lots of examples of people facing difficulties in their careers and elsewhere as a result of being public about their support.
I've been fortunate enough to not experience any setbacks, from what I know. I started boycotting invitations to perform in Israel more than 15 years ago, and it's very possible that I haven't seen any invitations since. [Laughs] But I also haven't been so active. It was very small events, too, so so I don't know so much about the consequences. But as soon as I would go public with any statement that is critical towards the Israeli occupation, then there is still, of course, a lot of hate. You just have to be prepared for that, even with something that is a little bit softer, whatever that might be.

I grew up going to demonstrations, and also with apartheid in the '90s in South Africa, so I was growing up seeing the link there. If you start saying no to it today, the hate you get might be a bit scary, but I'm used to it. I'm hopeful that things are changing in the general opinion for the better, but so far we don't see any improvement on the actual situation.

You've put out a lot of good music this year, and you've also been performing live a lot. Tell me about performing at this stage in your career, and how you engage with a greater community through it.
It's fun. Me and my friend Diva Cruz put together a show where she plays timbales over my music as well as other tracks I play from other people, as well as the songs we made together. It's all about getting a very joyous, dance-y vibe, and I also play percussion together with her on some of the tracks. We just try to have fun. It's so different from when I played before, with the Knife—more instant, more easygoing. [Laughs] It's also not really a concert as much as it is an extended DJ show with a lot of percussion. It's somewhere in between.

Tell me about some formative club experiences for you.
I started DJing at high school parties. I played a lot of house, garage, and disco—stuff that I'm finally reconnecting with today. Just for Pride, I'm doing a lot of a cappellas with these AI apps, where you can take out the vocals from these early '70s disco tracks and put them on new beats. It's really fun. The really formative years of clubbing for me was the early 2000s, when I got more into techno. The rave culture slowed down then, so it was more like organized big warehouse techno parties—not really raves anymore. It was all the different kinds of techno you can imagine at that time—even a bit of trance would show up there.

I'm thinking about how fast techno has become lately. [Laughs] I can't really come up to that speed because I feel like I've already been there. For me, it's more exciting to stay a bit slower [Laughs], because I already had that really fast period. I was even DJing 140 BPM stuff from Holland, gabber speed, around that time. Then I moved to Berlin in 2006, so that was also very formative, because then I was at Berghain every weekend.

Yeah, I've always loved trance and I love fast stuff, but it's always good to slow it down too.
Yeah, I mean, I love it for the ones who are younger who discover that today. [Laughs] That must be amazing, I'm happy for them, now they get to enjoy it for the first time.

You mentioned using AI software to pluck out vocals—obviously, AI is something a lot of musicians are talking about right now in general. How do you feel about it?
The only thing I've done so far is using this free app on the phone [Laughs]. I haven't used any of the ChatGPT or music software stuff. I'm quite old-school and traditional with music-making. I don't know what to say, really. I'm not so scared of it, but I've just been reading these reports from these researchers where the governments need to put a stop to it, or use regulation, but governments have very little power these days. It's only the companies. So I don't know how how that would happen.

It's a bad tradeoff these days. You find yourself saying, "I want the government to step in on this," and then you see what governments actually want to do, and you're like, "No, no, not like that!"
The UN can't even do anything internationally at this point. But I'm not so afraid that AI would take over music. We'll see.

How are you feeling about the future in general right now?
I don't know. It's such a weird time. I've never been taking part of like news as little as I do this past year. I've had to limit my news intake. I've never allowed myself to do that before, and I couldn't imagine setting those borders before, but I mean...yeah. I don't know.

What inspires you these days in terms of the world around you? What fuels your creative spirit, so to speak?
I had the opportunity to spend two months in Brazil in the winter, because my partner is from there. Just getting to know a completely new culture and a new way to joke and talk about things and do everything...I'm very grateful to take part of that, and look at Europe and the West in a different way. It brings so much to me.

I've been following your work for most of your career, and one reason why it's really great to have you on the newsletter is because, for a decent amount of your career—especially as part of the Knife—you weren't really doing a lot of press. You were more in the shadows instead. What changed?
Many things. I take myself much less seriously these days. [Laughs] That's one thing. Another thing is, and I understood this a bit late, I think that we the Knife were seen as mystical and a bit cryptic. That was never our intention. We were just playing around with the masks and everything. We thought it was kind of fun. It was seen as mystical, but I don't think it's so interesting to be mystical.

Another thing is that, when I look back, it can appear somewhat exclusive, what we did. I just do everything I can to be more inclusive and generous with things in general. Also, over the last 10 years or more, I've been teaching a lot, and I see the level of importance when it comes to sharing what your process is. It's actually appreciated from these young people that I've been working with.