Closed My Eyes is the first single of the forthcoming new EP, Chewing Gum, by Swedish dark pop artist, Promise and the Monster aka Billie Lindahl, and her first offering since her signing to Icons Creating Evil Art. Promise and the Monster goes back as far as 2007 when the project's debut EP and album, Antarktis and Transparent Knives, were released. Since then she has shared stages with Chelsea Wolfe, Mark Kozelek and Jens Lekman.
Closed My Eyes is in line with the wistful dark pop sound for which Promise and the Monster earned its initial notoriety, yet, the approach feels more mature, more grown and enticing as always.
"I wrote Closed My Eyes surprisingly quickly after thinking about the ambiguity in that image, closing one's eyes for various reasons. It was good fuel," Billie Lindahl describes. "The women in this song are out roaming in the streets. Marilyn is famous and Kimberly and Brenda got killed by Ted Bundy. The song was pretty easy to record compared to the other songs - it was a Paranoid moment so to speak. You know when Black Sabbath recorded their album Paranoid they just needed an extra song and came up with that riff, and bam: history. It worked just that same way with this song."
"I'm so pleased, together we can take this in a great new direction," Billie adds in relation to the signing with the new label, detailing more on the coming EP. "I used to like writing quite cryptic stuff but I tried hard this time to get out of that safe haven and be more direct. The new songs often express the feeling of being that last person at the party, dancing slowly in the background, waiting for something to happen. Like a sad moonlight disco."
Artist photo by Per Kristiansen
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