Nine people are on stage. Male and female. None is singing. All are dancing. No instruments are being played. For a 20-minute, three-song segment of Swedish art-dance electro-tricksters The Knife’s London show the sound was of a live concert, but nothing else was. Then, for “Networking”, the stage emptied and the music continued. All that was left were lights beaming into the audience.

With their curious juxtapositions and scrambling of pictorial space a dream-like atmosphere is conjured in Mamma Andersson’s paintings. Her scenes are often confined to the domestic or everyday realm, but, even when peopled, suggest something closer to still life than real life. Or perhaps stilled-life. The Swedish painter (Mamma is a nickname), now in her 50s, received welcome exposure in the UK with her Camden Arts Centre retrospective in 2007. This latest exhibition is, I believe, amongst her strongest work yet.

Various Artists: We Are One - Eurovision Song Contest Malmö 2013

In 2009 Niels Arden Oplev sent a lightning bolt through the multiplexes with his adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was only a matter of time before a magpie in Hollywood noticed. They duly went about the business of re-adapting the film for people who can’t read pesky subtitles, and now the director has been summoned over the water to make his English-language debut. Across from Sweden he’s brought a lucky charm in the form of Noomi Rapace, who in turn has brought Lisbeth Salander’s motivation: vengeance.

Continuing its voyage through Scandinavia’s music, theartsdesk opens the latest chapter in Norway with Still Life With Eggplant, the 16th album from Trondheim’s prolific, long-lived, occasionally challenging and always vital Motorpsycho.

Scandi thrillers have a lot to answer for. Ever since the small-screen success of the Swedish Wallander series, based on the books by Henning Mankell, there has been a host of other must-sees — including the brilliant Borgen — plus British imitations such as Kenneth Branagh’s Wallander. Not to mention various outings of The Killing and its local progeny such as Broadchurch. Now the Swedish actor who best embodied Wallander makes his West End debut in this Swedish-language drama.

Swedish cop drama Arne Dahl snugly fits BBC Four’s Saturday-evening slot for continental European TV imports, but it also suggests that the well might be running dry. Based on the opening episode there’s not much intrinsically wrong with it, but it’s not distinctive and – beyond Irene Lindh’s forceful portrayal of lead detective Jenny Hultin – lacks any characteristically Scandinavian markers. Things may change as the series finds its feet but, for now, Arne Dahl could have sprung from anywhere in Europe. The stock types making up Hultin’s team further that impression.

Shaking The Habitual’s centrepiece – the seventh of its 14 tracks – is the 19-minute “Old Dreams Waiting to be Realized”. A tone which ebbs in and out, it’s occasionally underpinned by distant rhythmic colour. Although thoughts inevitably turn to the similarly lengthy “SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)", the 22-minute amelodic experience exemplifying Scott Walker’s recent Bish Bosch, the astonishing Shaking the Habitual is, over its 97 minutes, an album retaining connections with what is recognisably music. Even so, it’s still pretty far out.

A.R. Kane: Complete Singles Collection

Joe Muggs

Lee Hazlewood: A House Safe for Tigers

Graham Rickson