El Perro del Mar

Big Anonymous is the eighth album from El Perro del Mar, the shape-shifting Swedish singer, instrumentalist and composer who has been one of the most consistently intriguing pop artists of the 21st century. El Perro del Mar is the alter ego of Sarah Assbring and was named after a stray dog she once encountered on a Spanish beach, who lifted her spirits at a fragile moment. The musical path she’s followed since has constantly surprised. Every time you think you’ve put her in a box, this Schrödinger’s Dog eludes you.

Her first, self-titled album was released in 2005 and its original blend of melancholic guitar songs and a girl-group sound garnered glowing reviews. Her second album, From the Valley to the Stars (2008), was a suite of keyboard-driven mystic ballads that won Swedish Radio’s award for Best Pop Album. She evolved into dark pop and electronic dance with the albums Love Is Not Pop (2009), which included the now classic ‘Change of Heart’, and Pale Fire (2012), and then into global pop with a political edge in Kokoro (2016) and We Are History (2018). Her 2020 album Free Land was a clarion call for artistic freedom and featured Blood Orange as a guest artist.

She has toured internationally with Lykke Li, José González, Taken by Trees and TV on the Radio, while remixers of her songs include Robyn, Vessel and Saint Etienne. She has co-written the upcoming album by the futuristic pop artist Zhala, and is in increasing demand as a composer for stage and cinema. For Royal Swedish Opera she co-wrote – with regular collaborator Jacob Haage – the score for Hlín Hjálmarsdóttir’s dance piece Riptide (2021), and she is creating the scores for two films: Four Little Adults by Selma Vilhunen, and Filip Jan Rymsza’s Object Permanence.