Tempestuous soundscapes, lovelorn chants and aching percussion take Sarah Assbring to a dire place on We Are History, her eighth release as El Perro Del Mar. The EP is a departure from the smooth, propulsive basslines that gird the more conventional pop structures of Assbring’s past records. Indeed, it’s explicitly presented as a “darker appendix” to 2016’s KoKoro, and the glove fits. Built on cold, dance-adjacent synthesizers and rhythmic, straining vocals, it’s more Karin Dreijer, Nico or Kate Bush than the Jens Lekman, Solange or Jonathan Richman of El Perro Del Mar’s past.
Here, Assbring’s signature mix of moody atmosphere and articulate layers of rhythm are heavier, wilder and more tense. Release comes only in rising bursts of static and pulsing electronic washes of strings and keys. This initially makes for an uncomfortable, even jarring listen. It’s difficult, halfway through the denial-laden title track, to imagine the EP finding a way out of its submerged tunnel of despair or, for that matter, Assbring’s protagonist ever breaking free of her bleak identity crisis. But as this short swirling set unfolds, the record’s opaque opulence becomes enveloping and engaging thanks with the injection of elegant instrumental phrases and Assbring’s emotive, deceptively soulful voice. By the time “Each Man to His Own” brings We Are History to an end, a sense of delight, and even closure, in Assbring’s vocal is palpable. As a buzzing, ethereal riff plays her out, her resignation seems like an exorcising step forward out of the storm.
Part of Dusted's round-up of shorter reviews: Dust Volume 4, Number 4