“I was after a different sound and as well as a different way of working when forming the idea for 'Love Is Not Pop'. The songs were mostly written during a stay in Paris in October last year and it was around this time I got in touch with Rasmus Hägg from the Swedish duo Studio. I've been a huge fan of Studio ever since I heard their early releases and me and Rasmus had been talking about doing something together before but time had never really been on our side - until now. The initial idea was actually for him to make a remix of one of the songs on the album but after having given the whole thing some thought both he and I thought it would be even more interesting and challenging to have him co-produce it together with me. We had long talks about the sound and feel of the album. I knew I was after the bassy and percussive mystic groove that is one of Rasmus specialities and I explained to him that I was ready to let him just do his thing. Funnily enough I had just caught him in the making of his solo album and he couldn't stop talking about using acoustic guitars and live drums. Rasmus had just started playing drums and really wanted to use live drums only on the record. After hearing his first recordings it didn't take him long to convince me it was a great idea. Rasmus plays all guitars, bass and drums on the record. It's beautiful, how we'd met in a time where both of us were looking for something new, something different than what we'd done before. It just happened ...

I wanted to make something as unfashionable as an album in the classic sense of the word – in terms of its composition and the idea of a theme. The theme itself was initially something as simple yet complex as heaven and it led me into a wide and seemingly endless search for a means, a language in which to express myself. Although during this time I was, even though I mostly didn't realize it, following a certain train of thought – that of love, grief and loss, solace and hope, deepest despair and wildest childish euphoria – to the lowest and the highest of heights.
In many ways one could say that 'From the Valley to the Stars' is created out of an intellectual idea – the music turned up only after the language, the literary as well as the harmonic, was created. And at that moment it was as if the music did not belong to me. As if someone else had written it. In some strange way I felt as if it had existed all along. Somewhere. In the ground? In the heavens? Just like when you start humming a tune you're not sure where you picked up or where you heard it before. This is the way I think that which we often call 'folk music' works – like timeless melodies striking something deep within us; from deep down in the soil, from high up in the sky.
Now I am not saying that my idea was to make folk music, but I was searching for that timelessness; the grand mystery of it all that has been ringing within our hearts since the beginning of time. I wanted to make something that in its...

How Did We Forget is the first single taken from El Perro del Mar's forthcoming album From the Valley to the Stars. The b-side is the wonderful and exclusive You Hit Me (It's a Crying Shame).