from the valley to the stars

El Perro Del Mar - Inner Island

Sarah Assbring tricked me! It's weird ever since I found out that El Perro Del Mar was not in fact a band, but a woman who wrote and produced her songs. For some reason, El Perro Del Mar just intuitively sounded bigger than one person to me. I'd been enjoying El Perro's self-titled album for awhile, and songs like "I Can't Talk About It" and "God Knows. . ." possessed a vitality and joyful energy that led me to assume it was a collective project. Not so.

Even long after the revelation, as I listen to El Perro's upcoming album, From the Valley to the Stars, a song like "Somebody's Baby" has an energy about it that it's hard to imagine it as the result of one person sitting in a room in front of her computer. Anyways, I'm not sure what that has to do with the rest of this, but I just wanted to mention it.

For the last three days I've been digesting From the Valley to the Stars and pondering why El Perro's songs are so enjoyable. First off, don't be fooled by the title into thinking that this album might transcend the chronic melancholy of her last album: El Perro still sounds very sad. And yet the theme of much of the album seems to be rejoicing--a kind of wonderment with the world. Which is the odd paradox that provides the aesthetic for this album, and I suppose, in a way, El Perro's last album, as well. El Perro sings the words to "Happiness Won Me Over" with the same defeated, sad-sounding voice that she uses for the rest of the album. In fact, she doesn't change her tone much at all--the few indications of emotional shift come from small instrumental changes.

From the Valley to the Stars has El Perro testing the limits of her unique stylistic approach, and while I'm not sure she's always successful, there are some astounding moments. Most songs follow a similar template based around a church organ, balanced out with bits of recorder, trebly piano and strings, and the occasional horns. There is a certain restrained quality to the songs as they progress almost systematically. Organ chords undergo microchanges, with notes remaining the same throughout the progression, droning on as other notes change. Lyrics are one or two lines repeated as mantras. If you've heard El Perro's last album, you already know this. But even moreso than her last album, From the Valley is single-minded in its aesthetic, resulting in an album that achieves emotional consistency by eschewing any sort of emotional ups and downs. There are no bursts or buildups of passion or despair or catharsis. There is always a feeling of inertia and frozen emotion accompanying these songs. It's gripping to the point that, even just listening to it, there's almost a sense of physical paralysis.

"Inner Island", the centerpiece of the album, is perhaps the best example, a distillation, of this aesthetic. It's lyrics fit onto a single line: "Don't cast away your inner island/It's where you went as a child/It's where you long to go, still." Its mantra reads like psychobabble, yet it's beautiful and incredibly affecting. It reminds me quite a bit of the coda to Liars' 2005 album, Drum's Not Dead, "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack".

So what's all this about joyful energy that I was talking about earlier? And why for the last couple of days have I been singing the songs from this album (yes, in my best approximation of Assbring's voice) and annoying the hell out of everyone around me? Even with its idiosyncrasies, From the Valley to the Stars is still very much a pop album. "How Did We Forget", and more upbeat songs like "You Can't Steal a Gift" and "Somebody's Baby" are incredibly catchy, with vocal melodies that bring to mind the forever-hummable standards of the Motown era. There's a familiar nostalgia, which translates into ecstatic joy for me, in the way El Perro relishes words like "baby" on the hooks. I think most of El Perro's songs are easily approached as reinventions and variations on some very classic tunes. "My World Is Empty Without You" would be one of them--thematically and melodically it fits like a glove.

So, I've been uncharacteristically long winded in this post. It's almost like I wrote an actual review. Kinda disturbing. Let me assure you I'm not nearly as obsessed with this album as it might look.

Let's see, what you really need to know about El Perro Del Mar's From the Valley to the Stars: I recommend this album because it is beautiful just like her last album was.

You can stream another song,"How Did We Forget", and find out more about the album at Licking Fingers.

www.myspace.com/elperrodelmar