The sadness that has long underscored Swedish singer/songwriter
Sarah Assbring's work as
El Perro del Mar becomes the predominant force on her album
Big Anonymous, a stark and harrowing reflection on mortality, pain, and survivor's guilt. Over the years, the project has taken on many different guises, moving from dour indie beginnings to more dancefloor-ready pop, and with her 2016 album
KoKoro, shaking things up dramatically to tie in sounds from multiple global music cultures.
El Perro del Mar has never sounded quite so broken as she does on
Big Anonymous, though, with spacious and dismal arrangements serving as a stage for observations on grief and existential dread. The material for the album grew out of a theatrical and movement-oriented performance
Assbring was commissioned to create in 2019, and these recordings feel very much like they could soundtrack a play or film about death. The instrumentation varies from song to song, but the scene is set by the minimal drum machine and synths of "Suburban Dreams," which move in pained waves beneath
Assbring's vocals. Lyrics circle back to loneliness, impermanence, and pondering endlessness, and the instrumentation is atmospheric more than structured. "In Silence" stands out as almost orchestral ambiance, while "The Truth the Dead Know" covers a sweet, melodic loop in a heavy cloak of reverb until it feels like a dark cloud casting a shadow on an otherwise sunny day. In a particularly striking moment,
Assbring reworks her 2019 single "Please Stay" in a new version, stretching what was once a dreamy (if eerie) '50s-styled pop song into a nightmare of warped fidelity and wobbly distortion. The newfound sense of decay that carries the song is emblematic of the general disposition of
Big Anonymous. It's a cold, sometimes punishing album that eventually culminates in a hard-earned type of anguished beauty. Much like
Nico's icy and vacuous tones on
The Marble Index or the more emotionally ragged entries in
Björk's catalog,
El Perro del Mar stares into chasms of being and nonbeing on
Big Anonymous, calmly dictating back the horrors and revelations she sees in a steady voice. ~ Fred Thomas
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