Our love for Sweden’s BBC Sound Of nominated Niki & the Dove grew slowly and steadily, mainly because of their habit of popping up on our iPod and sounding far bigger, grander and melodramatic than electronic pop music has a right to. They are fantastically brilliant, and singles DJ, Ease My Mind and The Drummer only scratch at the surface of what they’re capable of. We met Malin Dahlström and Gustaf Karlöf for a nice chat which, despite our ridiculous questions, they managed to turn into a deep philosophical discussion. Here’s a bit of it…

HM: Hello Niki & the Dove. We’ve repeatedly called your music “electropop” but that doesn’t really describe what you do. Do you have any better suggestions?

Gustaf: “No. Ha ha!

“Music is there to listen to. I know that’s a boring answer but music is really something fantastic when you think about it. It’s there. Even if Malin sat here describing the music in half an hour it would not be close. Not only our music; when you describe music in general, it’s always something different in the end.”

Malin: “From the beginning I thought of our music as electronic pop. But I wouldn’t want to describe it like that. Our aim is to make pop music. Whether we do or not, I don’t know. But that is our goal – to make pure pop music.”

HM: Thanks. That didn’t really help though.You’ve only been Niki & the Dove for two years, is that long enough to know whether you’re here to stay or might you split up after your first album?

M: A good question. I don’t think we really are at the point where we could say that this will last or not. We’re not settled, or anything.

G: Maybe we could be just a one album band?

HM: So many promise that, but few stick to it. Is a musical partnership a bit like dating? Do you need to have lots in common or do opposites attract artistically?

G: “Me and Malin have been friends for a long time, even though it was only two years since we started making music together. But during those years we started noticing, almost comically, that we liked the same songs. That sounds quite normal but it could be really strange…

“I remember that party in your kitchen, with a lot of people, we were quite drunk and I had the guts to play this ridiculous song that I like very much. It’s almost unknown. And you, Malin, were the only one in the kitchen who knew this 25-year old song that I thought no one else had heard of: Fallen by Lauren Wood.”

M: “She sings wonderfully; very deep and very emotional.”

G: “Anyway, it’s been like that through the years. I can play stuff and I know when Malin’s gonna like it and when she’s not gonna like it.”

M: “I could not have done this if it wasn’t with someone I felt this kinship with.”

HM: Are you attempting to be the band you’d like to listen to?

M: “That was a really nice way to put it. That’s the aim; the goal.”

G: “Of course. I assume every band has that goal. But when you’re in the studio you try to reach that point where you surprise yourself – a point of joy with what you’ve created.”

HM: When you’re writing and recording, do you have an idea of who might listen to it - the ideal Niki & the Dove fan?

M: “No.”

G: “No we don’t. When you’re writing, recording and producing it, it’s the complete opposite. In the best moments, I think you should lose that control and only be doing it for the purpose of the music itself – like its little own creature! I think you’re on dangerous ground if you’re starting to think about who is going to listen to it. I’m not sure, but that’s how I see it.

“There are times when you sit down to write and start to lose control of yourself and the song; when the song’s starting to live its own little life. I remember that happened with Mother Protect. When we had the vision of the song, we had a minimalistic view of the result. But when we started producing it, it took enormous and epic proportions that we weren’t prepared for. It became very bombastic and epic. And it had to be like that.”

M: “What we’re talking about is a good description of how it works when we go into the studio, because it’s very intuitive and free and it takes us where we don’t know. We don’t have a manifesto of… ‘we should only work like this’.”

G: “So the answer is no. We don’t think of other people.”

HM: We were thinking what the worst question we could ask you might be. And we think it might be this: what song could a DJ play right now, that would ease your mind?

G: “Oh, I like it more than ‘Could you describe your music?’ At this point he would play Lauren Wood – Fallen!”

M: “To ease my mind… maybe Feel Like Making Love by Roberta Flack. But if I think of that night that the song refers to, the DJs were so good and probably they were playing something by the Soft Pink Truth. That would definitely ease my mind on the dancefloor." 

HM: What do you think people say about you when you’ve left the room?

M: “Oh my god, isn’t her laugh terrible?”

G: “Aren’t they pretentious about the way they talk about their music?”

HM: What do you wish someone would invent?

M: “Time machine! Time machine!”

HM: To go forward or back?

G: “Both! And also a flying machine. I mean, I’m not talking about a plane…”

M: “Wings. If we could have wings…”

HM: What’s favourite unusual smell?

G: “Good question! I love smells! That could be a time machine – a smell.”

M: “I love the Chinese spice, anise. I have another smell that I really love and that is, in Sweden it’s so cold in the winter so when the ground frost goes out if it, there is a certain smell from the earth, in the springtime, in Sweden. That’s fantastic.”

G: “I totally love the smell after a heavy rain, when it’s stopped raining and the sun comes out. It’s a beautiful smell.”

HM: What do you wish people would stop doing?

G: “It’s very easy to say fighting, in this question.“

M: “But I wouldn’t want people to stop fighting, because sometimes it’s good.”

G: “But you know what I mean, Malin. Not fighting for peace, or whatever but…”

M: “I know, the war. I’d say, probably I’d like people to stop being unforgiving.”

HM: You’ve gone for quite weighty, moral subjects. Most people just say “whistling” or “spitting in the street”.

G: “We take you very seriously. Ask me the question again!”

HM: What do you wish people would stop doing?

G: “Hurting each other. Because we can hurt one another in so many different ways. I know it’s naïve but…”

M: “I think it’s good. Stop hurting each other! As we said before, we are kind of pretentious!”

HM: If we gave you a pet rabbit, what would you name it?

M: “I’ve had a pet rabbit.”

HM: What was it called?

M: “Hampus. He was so sweet. He was light gray and he loved being stroked.

G: But if you got one now, here, what would you call it? Hampus II? Is it a him or a her?”

HM: You really are taking this too seriously. I’m not actually going to give you a rabbit. But… you can have one hypothetical rabbit each.

G: “I’ll take a him and his name would be Jack. I’d be cool with a rabbit called Jack.”

M: “I’d call her Sugar and she’d be my little sugar."

HM: Thanks very much.

G: “No more questions?!”

HM: Well we could go on but…

Niki & the Dove – DJ, Ease My Mind is released on February 27. Which is very soon.

www.nikiandthedove.com