El Perro Del Mar: From The Valley To The Stars
Sweden’s Sarah Assbring will be releasing her latest El Perro Del Mar album, From The Valley To The Stars, in the US on April 22, with UK, New Zealand and Australia receiving their copies in May. US and Canadian fans won’t have to wait long to see El Perro Del Mar as Sarah Assbring will be backed up by Anna Ternheim for twelve North American shows in May. Andreas Söderlund, known as ASS, will be crossing the ocean with El Perro Del Mar for the tour in May.
In her album From The Valley To The Stars, Sarah Assbring gazes upwards and builds her songs around lifting melodies, simplistic instrumentation, and thick harmonies. The tape is saturated with organs and flutes, piano and slight use of percussion. El Perro Del Mar, Spanish for “the dog of the sea,” started in 2003. She initially gave her music away as Mp3s and selling CDR copies of her first recordings through Hybris. In 2004 she released a single with Jens Lekman, and two years later her self-titled album was released in the UK.
After Sarah Assbring finished From The Valley To The Stars, she blogged about her inspiration for writing the songs:
I feel myself trying to reach back to that initial stage where it all began. So I grabbed that book my father had lended me about Lars Gullin and I’m slowly remembering. It was the magnitude of a Swedish late summer’s night, the way the nightsky looks after a beautiful day. The eternal power in the way the nightsky’s always looked. It was the repercussions of harmonies and sounds and feelings within me I wasn’t even sure belonged to me. I started to ask myself whether all those things had to do with me having a depression, an identity crisis or was I maybe looking for God. I thought that for some time. Because I looked to the sky for answers. Aint that original… And then I thought about the notion of looking to the sky and the ancient meaning it seems to have for us humans. And that’s how the whole thing got started. I remember it now.
And now it’s done. I accept its flaws and different personalities. After all, that’s what I wanted to make this time: something that was too complex to fully grasp. Like standing on a meadow somewhere in Southern Sweden looking up at a late summernight’s sky.
17 April – Les Femmes S’en Mêlent (CCS) – Paris, FR (solo)
2 May – Pop Revo – Aarhus, DK
6 May – Johnny Brenda’s – Philadelphia, PA *
7 May – Joe’s Pub – New York, NY *
8 May – Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY *
9 May – Middle East – Boston, MA *
10 May – Lambi – Montreal, Quebec *
11 May – Mod Club – Toronto, Ontario *
12 May – Schubas – Chicago, IL *
14 May – Red Room – Vancouver, British Columbia *
15 May – Triple Door, Seattle, WA *
16 May – Dough Fir – Portland, OR *
18 May – Bimbo’s – San Fransisco, CA *
19 May – El Rey Theatre – Los Angeles, CA *
31 May – Siesta – Hässleholm, SE
25 June – Accelerator – Stockholm, SE
4 July – Arvikafestivalen – Arvika, SE
13 July – Pildammsparken – Malmö, SE
* Opening act: ASS