As the Internet makes musicians more accessible to their fans, artists intent on keeping their private affairs out of the spotlight have to find more creative ways to keep the focus on the music. Swedish singer Karin Dreijer Andersson, one-half of electronic pop duo The Knife, has found a simple, yet creatively fruitful way to resolve this quandry: by donning bizarre masks and make-up on stage and in music videos.

This desire to dress-up has led to an ongoing creative partnership with Malmö-based visual artist and director Andreas Nilsson, whose macabre imagination is behind a handful of The Knife's music videos, as well as an elaborate stage show for the band that starred a cast of weird and twisted creature characters.

"If I Had A Heart", the 34-year-old director's video for Andersson's new solo project Fever Ray, casts the singer as a skeletal reaper, solemnly singing in a haunted Swedish manor house surrounded by dead bodies and animalistic tribes people. To find out exactly what world these creepy characters came from, Boards set sail on a boat down the River Styx to ask Mr. Nilsson a few questions.

BOARDS: You've collaborated with Karin Dreijer Andersson of Fever Ray for a while, most notably through The Knife. How did you begin working together?

ANDREAS NILSSON: It's actually through The Knife I started doing music videos - when they asked me to do one for them called "Heartbeats". Karin and myself are friends from when we where young and part of a music scene in Göthenburg in the mid-90s. I like them and respect them and that's why I've continued to work with them I guess.

BOARDS: When did you first hear "If I Had A Heart"? Why do you think it makes a good single?

AN: I think I heard the first demo of it last spring. I have no idea about if it's a good single in a commercial aspect. We had a discussion about how we would like the video to turn out. Choosing from a couple of tracks, this track worked really well with the vision we had. The choice I think was more based on intuition and lust than on strategy.

BOARDS: What is it about the mournful, creeping nature of this music that appeals to you?

AN: I've always been attracted by the dark secrets of the grotesque in any art form. I'm not very interested in realism. That's what happens when you read too many H. P. Lovecraft books as a teenager perhaps.

BOARDS: What were some of the inspirations behind the video?

AN: We talked about a lot of things: The Jonestown Massacre, Dead Man and [avant-garde filmmaker] Maya Deren. The video is an interpretation of the music obviously, but also a comment on the future of western civilization.

BOARDS: What was the location and what was the most challenging aspect of the shoot?

AN: It was outside of Stockholm, in a castle called Häringe. We had a very tiny but devoted crew working for 12 hours I think... Kids in a canoe in a freezing swamp in Scandinavia on a late December night is not the ideal thing. And having the producer walk around barefoot in sub-zero temperatures in a muddy field is also kind of challenging - not for me but for him. Kalle Wettre is the best producer in the world.

BOARDS: What do you think of Karin's desire to hide her face in music videos and on stage? Is this something you talk about with her?

AN: Of course, it's such a big part of [The Knife's] artist persona. But I don't feel like talking about her ideas about these things, I think she's the one to answer that.

BOARDS: Music video directors play a key role in creating a mystique around an artist. Do you see this as part of your job?

AN: When I write for a track, all I think about is the music in and of itself and what images I get from it. It's a very intuitive process for me. I'm not a person with lots of conceptual theories around how to build someone's career.

BOARDS: Who designed the costumes?

AN: My friend Niki Lindroth van der Baar, a puppet maker, did them. They are based on some footage I had of natives in Papua New Guinea.

BOARDS: Do the characters in this video have names and back stories? Do you generally give names to the characters that you create for your videos?

AN: Yes, always. But it's not something that I want to share with the audience. Personally I appreciate art when I feel that there are keys to understand it that [remain] private. The art of someone like Henry Darger is a good example of that.

Watch Fever Ray, "If I Had A Heart"

Nilsson is repped by Folke Film in Sweden and by Continuum Content, a satellite of aWHITELABELproduct, in the United States.