[dropcap]K[/dropcap]aren Marie Ørsted, who goes by the moniker MØ (“you can only say it right if you’re Danish”) is known to many thanks to her brilliant cover of the Spice Girls pop classic Say You’ll Be There. This might be puzzling considering how borderline punk the bulk of her repertóire is. The 26-year-old Dane is one of those rare artists who is able to masterfully pack her far-reaching and diverse musical influences into a well-composed grungy pop-punk anthem. Ørsted herself attributes this to her tumultuous musical upbringing when she played in lots of “sucky” high-school bands, rapped and even performed in a feminist electro-punk band.

When asked to compare the teenage Karen of the past to the well-established MØ of today, she contends that, “I’m not that different actually. I think that for many years I was searching, you know? First of all searching for the music that I wanted to do, because I’ve been in many different genres, because I’ve been in love with a lot of different music — but also meeting someone who was good at something that I was not good at. When I met Ronni [Vindahl], who was my producer of No Mythologies To Follow, I felt that he could really lift me as an artist.” While it’s true that Vindahl imposed a certain structure on MØ’s music, she is humble about her own contribution to her success.

Nevertheless, that contribution is huge. She invests a great amount of physical energy into her live performances, creating an insurmountable visual and musical experience. Ørsted describes her live shows simply by pulling a grimace, making the sign of horns and drawing out a long “WAAHHHHH” while shaking her head around. “These last two years have been very very hectic,” she reflects, “In a good way of course. It’s been the best two years of my life so far but I’ve been constantly on the road, and if not playing gigs then doing press or promo or writing sessions.” She laments not having as much time to write new songs and speaks about the difficulty of finding when to stop and let herself rest: “You wanna do everything ‘cos you love it!” She intends to get back into the studio right away after playing out the remainder of her shows, and promises a new album in the near future. When asked what we can expect, she remains coy and claims that it’s too early to say despite the large amount of “scratches and demos” she already has.

Her success of late landed her a collaboration with Iggy Azalea on the track Beg For It, leading to a scheduled performance of the song on Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately for MØ, a technical error meant that there was a lag in the vocals during her part, causing the singer to lose her timing on live television. After the initial disappointment she laughed off the experience: “It taught me two things, one of which I already knew: I already knew that technical problems happen and you’ll never figure out why, but there’s a problem and you dunno what to do… And maybe if I was more trained in doing that kind of thing I could have faked it, but I got confused from the moment I opened my mouth because I couldn’t hear my timing so I was just lost. And I’m very bad at looking like I own it if I don’t.” She notes how the media has been calling her an anti-hero of the situation and how she sees that as a nice thing, because that’s what she is — “I don’t wanna be that perfect hero that does everything right because I’m not. I always fucking walk into a wall and stuff like that. I’m very clumsy and that’s fine.” Her debut LP, No Mythologies To Follow consists of just that — a sound that’s far from polished, but one that sounds best, more honest and perhaps more personal to her: “No one is flawless — you should embrace your flaws and make them part of your creative output, you know?”

Fortunately, her other recent collaboration with Elliphant on the dance tune One More was positive from start to finish. MØ doesn’t hide her admiration for the Swede, calling her “one of the coolest women I know.” The pair exude affected coolness in their music video for the song, which features MØ and Elliphant dressed as geishas in Adidas tracksuits, driving around at night in the back of a London cab whilst smoking and drinking whiskey. “It was a fun night!” MØ admits cheerfully. Observing the prevalence of tracksuits and sports gear in her on-stage outfits, the Dane pointed to her well-worn grey runners and black leggings: “That’s just what I would wear normally. I like it very relaxed…like vintage Everlast stuff, sports boxing vintage trash.” After going to one of her gigs you realise that she cannot wear anything else: the singer moves around a great deal, frequently jumping onto the crowd barrier and even scaling the structures in the venue. The gig ends with a motivational “Let’s see how strong you are Dublin!”, before jumping right into the crowd and nonchalantly singing out the dying verses of XXX 88.

Reflecting on her feminist past and her status as a female artist today she brushes off the popular view that the industry is dominated by male artists: “Everybody wants to talk about that — ‘Oh, there isn’t a lot of females in the industry’. First of all I think there is — there are so many rising solo female artists — but on the other hand, so what if there aren’t many women? I guess it’s the woman’s own choice, I mean if you wanna do music you do music. It shouldn’t be like ‘Oh, it’s good because it’s women, oh, we finally get some women to do something’! Yeah, but is it good?”

Despite this criticism, she lists Iggy Azalea, Grimes, Beyoncé, FKA twigs, Banks and Lorde as examples of “strong female artists” at the forefront of the music industry today. From her animated tone it’s clear that this is an issue close to her heart. She then shows one of her many tattoos — a balaclava inked on the inner side of her upper arm. “This one here is to support Pussy Riot! Everybody says it looks like Pac Man but it is a balaclava,” she jokes. Before the end of the interview she takes time to clarify her position on feminism: “As I see it men and women are equally good and equally worthy, but we have different points… We are born a bit different, we look a bit different so of course we are a bit different but we are all the same good, you know what I mean? In the end, it’s just about like ‘hey we are all fucking cool, okay?’.”

The most striking thing about MØ is her unfettered enthusiasm. Before the interview she explains that she wants to talk about everything. From the outset it’s clear that Karen Marie Ørsted as a person and MØ as a singer are the same individual. She doesn’t have a front she puts up for the stage or for the cameras. There is an air of frankness about her, which translates to her music making her one of the most memorable and entertaining artists today.