The Knife have announced plans to split at the end of their upcoming European tour. “We don’t have any obligations to continue,” Karin Dreijer explained in a new interview. “It should only and always be for fun.”



News of the Knife’s decision was at first a little oblique. Although a press release, issued on Thursday, referred to the band’s “last tour”, it merely gave the impression that this would be the final go-round for their 2013 album Shaking The Habitual. But a band spokesperson has confirmed to Dazed and Confused that Karin and Olof Dreijer will go their separate ways following the Knife’s upcoming gigs in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Berlin, Manchester, London and Reykjavik. “We performed [this show] in the US in the spring and now we would love you to join us in our dance for some last shaking moves,” they wrote on their website theknife.net.



In an email to Dazed, Karin Dreijer said that she hasn’t yet decided “what is to come next”. “At the moment, the Knife is 25 people touring and even more people documenting the process, making videos and helping us out with different things,” she wrote. “When we finish the tour now in November we will close down.”

Olof, Karin’s brother, will be focusing on an album with the Tunisian musician Houwaida Hedfi. The two performed together at this summer’s Clandestino festival and Dreijer will mix and produce Hedfi’s next album. “She’s a great composer and plays all kinds of percussion instruments,” he told Dazed. “It’s very moving music!” Karin Dreijer is also expected to resume her solo project Fever Ray.

In the meantime, the Knife still plan to participate in a touring cabaret that highlights the importance of immigration issues to the upcoming Swedish elections, which will be held in September. This 75-minute show incorporates “text, music, image, costumes and confetti”, Karin Dreijer said, using songs by the Knife and MIA’s 2007 single Jimmy.

While they have never been a major commercial act, the Knife’s four studio albums made them one of the most influential artists of the new millennium. José Gonzalez’s cover of Heartbeats, from the Knife’s 2003 opus Deep Cuts, reached No 9 on the British singles chart. The Knife’s most recent release was a remix EP, Shaken-Up Versions, issued in June.

The Knife final tour dates:

10/31 Stockholm, Sweden - Annexet

11/01 Gothenburg, Sweden - Film Studios

11/03 Berlin, Germany - Arena Berlin Treptow

11/05 Manchester, England - Manchester Academy

11/06 London, England - Brixton Academy

11/07-09 Reykjavik, Iceland - Iceland Airwaves