Blood on the Tracks: El Perro del Mar, 'Love Is Not Pop'

| Print Post This | Like (0) | Comments (0)

EL PERRO DEL MAR is Sarah Assbring, alone. While Rasmus Hagg is the incredibly important co-producer behind the Swedish singer-songwriter's latest, "Love Is Not Pop" (The Control Group), the lyrics, emotions and blood are Assbring's in solitary.

Yet, she feels comfortable opening up about the subject matter to a complete stranger.

"I just feel like my music is extremely close to, and parallel to, what's happening in my life," she said. "My music always goes along with what's happening in my life, so in that sense I don't feel like I have to be nothing else but open about what my music is about. It's another scope of me ... it all goes together."

The devastating words she sings on "Love Is Not Pop" leave little doubt that it's a breakup record, and the man who inspired the record knows it's all about him.

"He was actually working with me, too, as sound engineer," Assbring said. "So, it was just after the actual breakup. ... Rasmus came in as a third party to make it all easier, in every way."

Hagg didn't just act as an intermediary, though. His sonic touches push "Love Is Not Pop" in ways that previous El Perro del Mar records never went.

Assbring's earlier albums have a distinct '60s-girl-group-gone-'90s-indie-rock vibe, but the new one evokes the lush, avant-rock of '80s artists such as Kate Bush and Virginia Astley, with whom she shares the ability to expose raw emotion in an artier setting.

"I think I've been in a kind of denial about female musicians' impact on my music," Assbring said. "It wasn't a conscious decision, but [for this new CD] I think I went into my early teenage mood — or the music, or the soundscape — I was into back then. But apart from that, when me and Rasmus started working, we were very much trying to create something that couldn't be referred to in any way."

Hagg is one half of the acclaimed electronica duo Studio, but he didn't bring his keyboards with him, preferring to take common instruments in rock and tweaking them into almost ambient washes.

"There are very, very few synthesizers — if any [on the album]," Assbring said. "That was one of things we were trying to do — turn the analog or acoustic sounds, or destroy the instrumental sounds and turn them intsomething indistinguishable. I wanted to have the feeling like I could listen to it and enjoy it, and step into this world where only the music existed, and not think about what instruments are being played here. I just wanted them to be emotional sounds."

But initially, it wasn't easy for Assbring to allow another person to become intimately involved in her music-making, let alone having someone have a front-row seat to her breakup.

"I started out working how I always work: alone," she said. "Structuring a song with Rasmus, I found it extremely hard in the beginning — even showing a [rough] draft to someone. But I soon realized he was able to take it further in way that I would never do ... taking the harmonies in another direction, or adding a bass line that I didn't think would fit. He opened up so many worlds for me; it was amazing, actually."

And so is "Love Is Not Pop."

» 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW; with Peter Bjorn & John, Sat., Nov. 7, 8 p.m., $25; 202-265-0930. (U St.-Cardozo)

» Download the MP3 for "Change of Heart" for free here.

» RELATED: "Grown-Up Folks: Peter Bjorn and John" interview [Express, April 2009]
» RELATED: "Liner Notes: Peter Bjorn and John, 'Living Thing'" interview [Express, April 2009]

Photo courtesy Sneak Attack Media