You know that tingly feeling you get in the back of your head, not your Spidey Sense working, or Selsun Blue, but a weird-yet-enjoyable mixture of relaxation and attentiveness, like a breeze hitting you just right? Okay, maybe you don’t, but that’s the feeling one can get from the latest sophomore stateside submission from a Swedish songstress, El Perro Del Mar’s Love Is Not Pop.
Ms. Del Mar, Sarah Assbring (you can see why she goes by a nom-de-plume…), came across the Atlantic last year with some other Swedish singing female imports, like Lykke Li (QRO album review) & Anna Ternheim (QRO album review), thanks to From the Valley Into the Stars (QRO review). But Love Is Not Pop takes her promise and fills out the somewhat thin Valley, being more interesting & more complex, despite containing not even half as many tracks (almost more of an EP than an LP). Openers "Gotta Get Smart" and "Change of Heart" have a soft, enchanting beauty & touch, with just enough ‘tronica and guitars, giving the listener that prickly-soft feeling at the back of the head.
None of the other pieces on Love quite measure up to the first two; the following "L Is For Love" loses intimacy with more synths, while "It Is Something (To Have Wept)" is played a bit too straight. But "Heavenly Arms" provides an interesting haunt, more removed, but also more rhythmic, while closer "A Better Love" is Assbring’s sad swan song, lilting & lofting.
With Love Is Not Pop, El Perro Del Mar joins Ternheim and Victoria Bergsmann, a.k.a. Taken By Trees (QRO album review), in upping her profile with an improved second stateside release for a Swedish singer. When they started out, it looked like Lykke Li was the hot pick, but Del Mar (just about to tour America as opener for the biggest Swedish import, Peter Björn & John – QRO interview) has quite a touch.
