On a beach in Spain, Sarah Assbring was alone. A stray dog approached her—out of a mass of European tourists packed like sardines on the hot sand—as though it sensed she was in need of something.
“It stayed and it just stared at me, and I felt like, I just felt like it saw right through me,” recounts the Swedish musician, whose dark blond pixie haircut and wide eyes are reminiscent of a ’60s-era Twiggy. “That little animal had the capability to just see right through me in a way which I felt that no one had been able to in the last few years.”
The Spanish getaway was a desperate measure she’d taken, hoping to pull herself from the depths of a time she describes as completely muted. A period of self-reflection had led her to an identity crisis, questioning anything and everything, including why she was or had ever been making music and why it had been such an important presence in her life. It was so overwhelming that she stopped altogether. She didn’t sing, play, or write music at all—even speech was stripped away by a crippling depression.
The experience with that dog on the beach was a reminder of the little things in life that, while seemingly insignificant, can strike you in a certain way—that out of all the people on that overcrowded beach, it was Assbring it’d been drawn to. It was a spark. And while the transition wasn’t immediate, it was enough to ignite the life that had lain dormant for nearly two years within her. Tentatively, she began feeling her way back to the creative place that emotional despair had forced herto abandon.
“I can remember a specific evening when I was just staring at my guitar and I was just very scared, very nervous [to] even just touch it or try to play it, [but] I did—I strummed it for awhile and then I thought, maybe I am ready to start singing again. And I tried it and it felt very strange. It was like almost taking your first steps again; and my voice had changed very much from the way that I sang before—in a good way. It was as though I had found a new way, a new link in myself.”
She grew bolder, and strove to shed the inhibitions of working with others she’d had in the past. She wanted to be free from expectations and pressures, both external and internal. Having always been her own worst critic, she was finally ready to trust herself and her creative instincts, and followed them. She dubbed herself El Perro del Mar, or dog of the sea.
At first listen, the songs on the self-titled LP are almost childlike in their straightforwardness. Reminiscent of ’60s girl groups, they’re full of Motown-style piano riffs, peppy hand claps, and doo-woppy sha la la las and shooby doos. Choruses are often repetitive, evoking the innocence and simplicity of that era, and could easily be written off as trite or saccharine. Much of the lyrics are without pretense. On album opener “Candy,” Assbring sings, “I’m going for to buy me some candy,” while on “God Knows” she imparts a direct chorus of “You gotta give to get/You gotta give to get back/To the love.”
But, while they could be written off as elementary, at the root they are refreshing—sincere and honest pop creations with a crystalline production quality. The melodies are beautifully crafted, and Assbring’s delivery, in tender shimmering soprano, brings an oyster-shell luster to playful and vulnerable content.
El Perro del Mar is a record that can relate to the tender melancholy of a gloomy Sunday evening while also infusing it with optimism, balancing angst-ridden meaning-of-life questions with a candy break. It’s a reminder not to take things so seriously. It, like its namesake, imparts the notion that the trivial can bring joy to day-to-day life.
“The older me would say that I am really pathetic and cheesy [in thinking] it’s the little things that make life worthwhile, but that’s definitely the way I want to live and try to live my life each day. You know, that’s what makes life beautiful.”
