El Perro Del Mar

Sarah Assbring, the Swedish artist behind El Perro del Mar, crafts ethereal sonic creations that fuse modern experimental pop with Brill Building traditions while echoing Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, and Smokey Robinson. Her words, in turn, convey a gentle yet indescribable melancholy about the obstacles encountered in romance and daily existence. Formed from earlier short releases, the project’s first international album, El Perro del Mar, appeared in 2006. Her following two albums reached the Swedish Top 40, among them the joint effort Love Is Not Pop (2009). These works also signaled an evolving aesthetic, successively incorporating disco textures and somber synth environments. The fifth album, KoKoro, released in 2016, drew from Assbring’s deep engagement with Asian and African pop forms. Subsequent EPs included We Are History in 2018, the politically oriented Free Land in 2020, and the 2021 composition created to accompany the contemporary dance production Riptide. The stark, fragile single “In Silence,” issued in 2023 and addressing the remorse that can accompany loss, introduced the next full-length, Big Anonymous, arriving in 2024.

Assbring has recounted that the name El Perro del Mar surfaced during an unsuccessful trip to Spain. Isolated, despondent, and unsettled while seated on the shore, she encountered a stray dog that approached her; its attempt to connect prompted her to channel her emotions into songwriting. She started laying down tracks independently, handling most instruments and vocals herself, and Sweden’s Hybris label put out her first release, a three-song EP, in late 2006. The EP received warm notices and solid sales, after which a split single with Jens Lekman came out in North America via the respected indie imprint Secretly Canadian.

The second EP, You Gotta Give to Get from 2005, performed strongly in Sweden, aided by an appealing animated clip for the title track, and helped introduce her sound in England and the United States. Later that year Hybris gathered her single sides and EPs into the album Look! It’s El Perro del Mar!; Memphis Industries then issued a largely reworked version titled El Perro del Mar in the U.K. in mid-2006, followed soon after by an American edition on The Control Group. These developments led to a deal with Licking Fingers, the label run by fellow Swedes the Concretes, after which she began preparing additional material.

Her second collection of original songs, From the Valley to the Stars, emerged in early 2008. Upon returning to the studio she brought in Rasmus Hägg of the group Studio as a partner. The resulting 2009 full-length, Love Is Not Pop, shifted away from earlier reference points toward disco and contemporary club textures while preserving the warmth and intensity for which she was known. Pale Fire, released in 2012, broadened the electronic vistas first explored on Love Is Not Pop, moving the singer further from her indie origins into darker synth-pop terrain.

Assbring was expecting a child while recording the latter album and gave birth to a son shortly afterward. After devoting the next few years to raising him, a visit to a musical instrument museum rekindled her interest in music. The subsequent album featured Chinese string instruments, assorted Asian flutes, Arabic strings, dulcimer, and elements inspired by Ethiopian and Indian music. Constructed from samples captured at the museum and realized with bassists Andreas Söderström and Johan Berthling, drummer Mattias Bergqvist, and multi-instrumentalist Per “Ruskträsk” Johansson, KoKoro appeared on The Control Group in September 2016. One year later El Perro del Mar recorded an EP that Assbring viewed as a companion to KoKoro—explicitly political and reflective of the unsettled period during which it was made. The tracks on We Are History (2018) were composed on an electronic tabla box and co-produced by Jacob Haage. Free Land, the 2020 EP featuring a collaboration with Blood Orange, arose from repeated visits to Stockholm’s Moderna Museet during hours when the contemporary art museum was closed to visitors. Assbring maintained her ties to the art sphere with her 2021 project alongside Haage, a score written for choreographer Hlín Hjálmarsdóttir’s modern dance work Riptide; the piece was issued as a standalone album by The Control Group in June 2021.

In late 2023 El Perro del Mar joined City Slang and unveiled the darkly pensive single “In Silence” to preview the next album, Big Anonymous, released in February 2024. The record likewise originated in a theater commission—this one for Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theatre, scored for two dancers and three musicians (Assbring together with Haage and Petter Granberg on synthesizers). Working with engineer Daniel Rejmer, the songs were subsequently refined with additional instruments and final touches supplied by producer/composer Vessel (Seb Gainsborough) for the City Slang debut.