El Perro Del Mar Love Is Not Pop
Sarah Assbring (a.k.a. El Perro Del Mar) takes a break from the baroque Spectorian pop […]
Sarah Assbring (a.k.a. El Perro Del Mar) takes a break from the baroque Spectorian pop of her first two LPs on Love Is Not Pop, which was produced with assistance from Rasmus Hägg, one half of balearic duo Studio. Puffs of Ibiza air don’t do much to remedy Assbring’s permanently inconsolable mood, though the scenarios are less coded than in the past—”Gotta Get Smart” opens the album with Assbring setting up a lover for a dumping apparently long in the making. Wading through the responsibility of being the dumper rather than the dumpee means that the most fascinating moments here are the slighter ones. “Let Me In” is the album’s most sublime moment, with Assbring’s voice lurching ahead, wrapped in a zero-gravity production style that wouldn’t be out of place on Arthur Russell’s Calling out of Context.