free music friday: el perro del mar

With her disaffected retro pop tinged self-titled debut, Sarah Assbring, El Perro Del Mar’s sole member, established herself to an extent as the poster girl for those among the party generation dangerously close to unravelling. A modern and unimpeachably chic Mrs Dalloway, if you will, always with a ghostly wisp of sadness behind her eyes and curling out from the corners of her mouth. This year’s From The Valley To The Stars was even more austere and strange, and, admittedly, hard to really warm to.

If 2009 is going to herald, as many have predicted, a deepening global depression, then El Perro Del Mar’s spooked and sensitive reading of traditional midnight singalong ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is perhaps the most apt version for the times. Denuded of all the sozzled bawdiness you’d get at your typical New Year’s Eve bash, it’s a beautiful glassy creature built upon a bed of spacious, syncopated organ that wavers not once throughout, and a sea of twinkly percussion. Over this thin veneer of seasonal conviviality, Sarah’s layered vocals pipe and coo in appealing formations despite sounding more ephemeral and haunted than ever. “I recorded [the song] to celebrate the fact that this year is slowly coming to an end,” writes Sarah in her blog, “To tell you the truth I’m feeling kind of happy about it.” Really?? “Here’s to a beautiful 2009,” she adds. Eddi Reader this is not.

FREE MP3: El Perro Del Mar, ‘Auld Lang Syne‘ [via Pitchfork]

Written by: Alan Pedder

Tags: el perro del mar

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 3:50 am and is filed under All A/V, free music friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.