Promise and the Monster is a children's book about a pony named Promise and a monster called, well, presumably, Monster. Promise and the Monster is also the adopted name of Swedish singer/multi-instrumentalist (guitar, cello, flute, organ, glockenspiel) Billie Lindahl, who, at 19, isn't that far-removed from picture-book reading herself. As if traced from some market-tested "indie girl" template, Lindahl has Feistian dark bangs and a coltish, eye-skirting demeanor, and sings in a high, breathy, elfin chirp in the neighborhood-- though with nowhere near the fence-building potential-- of Joanna Newsom. That sounds unbearably precious, but it isn't. Lindahl's songs are as indebted to pre-adolescence as her moniker, but they don't document devotion to ponies or, I dunno, Disney's mind-bogglingly successful High School Musical, but anxiety over skin, bodies, adult sexuality.Swim is the first single from Promise and the Monsters new album Red Tide. The video is cut by Billie Lindahl in iMovie, and the footage are from various art films from the 1970′s.
