Miike Snow

Tue 1st Sep, 2009 in Features

Almost in spite of themselves, synth-pop trio Miike Snow are shrouded by the kind of mystery that only the Internet could harvest so well. Preceded by the now-instantly recognisable silhouetted jackalope avatar, Swedish pair Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, along with American Andrew Wyatt, seem to be forever downplaying the mythology that has been thrust upon them since they emerged in 2007.

“We’d never intended to play the anonymous angle,” insists Wyatt – the quintessential hot-and-cold interviewee who can be as charming as he is taciturn, depending on the topic of conversation. “Ever since we began we’ve had photos of ourselves up and everything, but I don’t think the intention of the band is to have a face, we really just like to keep it more about the music.”

Obviously not that interested in discussing the – œvirtues of anonymity’, I inquire about the origin of their association with the jackalope (or the more ridiculous alternative, “antelabbit”). It’s the crypto-zoological folkloric creature inspired by a severe horn-inducing, face-ravaging infection in cottontails.

No big deal, Wyatt assures me. He explains that the whole thing was just a fluke, thus shooting down any grand illusions of metaphorical significance I might have had. “The jackalope came about from Christian’s tattoo artist. We told her we wanted to come up with some kind of logo that had horns on it. We gave her that song, The Rabbit, because it was the only one we’d finished, and we asked her to do something with that. So she put antlers on a rabbit. But she’d actually never heard of the jackalope before or knew any of the mythology behind it.”

Fortunately they don’t particularly need the added interest of a stabby-faced rabbit legend to garner everyone’s attention anyway. The stuff of Miike Snow’s own legend is built on far more solid – and musical – ground. Previously known as production duo, Bloodshy & Avant, the Swedes, Karlsson and Winnberg, are credited with having written and produced tracks for pop fixtures Kylie Minogue, Madonna, The Sugababes, Jennifer Lopez, and Britney Spears, claiming a Grammy for the latter’s legendary chart-topper, Toxic.

Wyatt himself also a former in-house producer for Downtown Records, whose most recent non-Miike Snow-related project saw him team up with Mark Ronson for Daniel Merriweather’s debut album, Love And War. It’s a relationship Wyatt has wisely taken advantage of when scouting for remixes for their debut self-titled album, out now.

“Mark’s a good friend of mine, so I just showed up at his studio one day and sat on the couch and said I wasn’t leaving until he did the remix. So he did it right there, right in front of my eyes. I’m really excited about it. But all of the remixes so far have been so different, that’s what’s so great about them.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find a club night that hasn’t played some version of the lead single, Animal, over the past six months. Its infectious Kindergarten-pop is filled to the brim with bucket-loads of sing-along accessibility, making it the ideal fodder for any dancefloor. But it’s also the perfect foil to Wyatt’s dark and often cryptic lyrics.

“A lot of people have mentioned that,” Wyatt admits of his tendency to write unashamedly somber lyrics. “I think there has to be some kind of darkness when your melodies are very clear. You can’t have clear lyrics when you have clear melodies, otherwise you’ll end up sounding like Miley Cyrus. I’ve never wanted that, no one’s wanted that.

“You have to put a level of shadow into a painting; otherwise it’s just going turn out like a cartoon. I like the idea of making the meaning of the language hard to decipher. James [Mercer] from The Shins does it with his lyrics, so do Phoenix. Phoenix’s lyrics are great, you always have to decode them a bit. At the moment it’s very apropos to have really coded lyrics. I feel with the lyrics and the melodies in Miike Snow, there’s a kind of internal struggle between them.”

Miike Snow’s self-titled album is out now on Downtown Records through Inertia.