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Oct 22, 2020 By Christopher Roberts El Perro Del Mar

Sweden’s El Perro Del Mar (aka Sarah Assbring) has shared a new song “The Bells.” It is the first single from an upcoming EP expected this fall via The Control Group. Details of the EP are still forthcoming. Listen to “The Bells” below.

Assbring had this to say about the song in a press release: “‘The Bells’ was originally written for the screen, the Swedish director Lisa Aschan’s film Ring mamma! (2019) about a tumultuous woman trying to make sense of her life and the people in it. So ‘The Bells’ is something so strange as a commissioned song about love. The song kind of grew on me. Maybe because it tells of something sweet and untarnished and very hopeful and so I felt I wanted to make something more of it. But first I had to find a place for me in it. I am, as you know, not sweet and untarnished. I wanted to create a world for it. So together with my faithful partner Jacob Haage and the producer Patrik Berger (Lana Del Rey, Robyn, Ariel Pink, etc.) I created this jangly soundscape. I remember recording the vocals at the same time as the Corona virus hit the world and it seemed quite ironic to be singing about something as trivial as love. But then it hit me that love is perhaps what we need especially these days. That and hope. Which made the last phrase of the song ‘baby I can’t wait ’til tomorrow’ ring even more bittersweet and true. I really can’t wait until tomorrow.”

The single’s artwork features a black stoneware sculpture by the Swedish-Chilean artist Anton Alvarez. “Anton’s work have been an inspiration to me for a while now,” says Assbring in a press release. “I find drawing inspiration from real life forms and objects very compelling and immediate. The utter absence of words combined with total sensory focus and gut-feeling is something I need to remind myself of this in this overwhelmingly digital and referentially saturated time. To have Anton’s piece visually embody my song is a tingling sensation of happiness. It adds a whole other depth and dimension to the song which I find very interesting. Love as a complex monolith.”

Read our recent 2017 Artist Survey interview with El Perro Del Mar.

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