A new track from Avicii’s upcoming posthumous album, ‘TIM’ has been released today.
Avicii, the Swedish DJ whose real name was Tim Bergling, was found dead on April 20 last year. It was later confirmed he had taken his own life, aged 28.
‘Tough Love’ was produced and written by Avicii, Vincent Pontare and Salem Al Fakir from Vargas and Lagola. The new track is said to “stay true to the infectious nature of Avicci’s previous work and his desire to discover new sounds.”
Both Al Fakir and Pontare were longtime collaborators and worked with Avicii on ‘Silhouettes,’ ‘Hey Brother’ and ‘Without You.’
Using nearly finished songs, email conversations and text messages about the music that Avicii had left behind, they have continued to work on the album to complete it “as close to his vision as possible.” You can listen to the new song here:
In his notes about the song, it was revealed that Avicci wrote: “This one needs to be a duet. Coolest thing would be a real couple. Or a couple that have worked together enough to be almost considered a couple!”
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In Spring 2017, Avicci played a melody for Al Fakir and Pontare which later became a part of the song. At the time, Avicci was exploring sounds from northwest India.
“Oddly enough, the Indian influences fit perfectly into a song we were working on, something that was so typical of Tim…He was a melodic genius,” Pontare said.
He added: “Tim [Avicci] was extremely particular about vocal sounds and phrasing. He always heard the finished result in his head, and then in the studio, he coached guest singers on how to produce what he was hearing.”
You can watch a video which explores the story behind ‘Tough Love’ here:
According to the producers of the song, the recording of ‘Tough Love’ was 80% completed after his death. Adhering to the late star’s wishes, Pontare asked his wife, Swedish artist Agnes, to sing the song with him as a duet.
Meanwhile, it was announced last month that a biography of Avicii’s life will be released next year. The announcement came just days after the anniversary of his death.
The book will be written by Måns Mosesson – an award-winning journalist from Sweden. The writer has won awards such as the Prix Italia and the Stora Journalistpriset. Albert Bonniers Förlag, a Swedish publishing house, will publish the book.
All proceeds will go to the Tim Bergling Foundation – a charity being launched by Bergling’s parents to help others struggling with mental health. The late DJ’s family said the foundation will “initially focus on supporting people and organisations working in the field of mental illness and suicide prevention.” It will aim to look into supporting climate change activism, nature conservation and endangered species.”