It’s been said that time is the great equalizer, and though I haven’t stretched that metaphor to any absurd conclusions yet, it speaks to me regarding the last five or so years in indie pop. Every album I’ve loved, everything that I’ve found to be pushing the boundaries of pop music has seemed to be a variation on a theme. That is to say, to varying degrees, what we’ve heard has been more about reinvention than, well, just plain invention. Though that may be inevitable given the constraints of the medium, maybe I’m not ready to give up hoping that there could be something more worthwhile to get swept up in. Until then, I guess everything old will become new again. Everything new will be a bit like something old. Only time can qualify that theory, I suppose. Is originality in small gradations as important as the standards on which they’re modeled?
The point, however–the application to this needless abstraction–regards how much esteem one heaps upon a piece of art that is independently incisive and focused yet in deliberate debt to something else. In El Perro del Mar’s case, we could start with Phil Spector or Serge Gainsbourg and work our way up to Belle & Sebastian. From the Valley to the Stars–released by The Control Group on April 22–is a lush collection of songs drenched in hauntingly sincere melancholy, like her 2006 debut, Look! It’s El Perro del Mar!; they merit naming Sarah Assbring the most convincing baroque pop songwriter in recent memory. Her brittle, wispy voice, always looming on the verge of collapse; the compositions, restrained and minimal capturing every nuance in her inflection and highlighting emotions that are raw, bitter and self-deceptive. If this is a character Assbring is playing, she does it brilliantly. If it’s genuine heartache, someone needs to send her some flowers or maybe some candy (on a Saturday night, naturally).
It’s fair to say that El Perro Del Mar’s previous record was more immediate, more decisively melodic and a bit more florid than From the Valley to the Stars, but this is hardly a misstep. The austerity of the organ and recorder in “Glory to the World” provides a chilling backdrop to the dense vocals. “Somebody’s Baby” bounces cheerily despite it being a dour ode to a former love and the opposite is true of “Happiness Won Me Over.” Assbring’s voice conjures the weight of a lifetime and resonates as a true ambassador of sadness. I guess harping on to what the music is beholden to is overshooting the limitations of a record review and undermining the strengths of a great contemporary songwriter. It’s records this good that create the pregnant pause that triggers such realizations, though. Regardless of the history of sound or a certain public willingness, From the Valley to the Stars is another brilliant bullet point in Assbring’s career and one that isn’t encumbered by any too-tall shadows.