22.1.07

Look! It's El Perro Del Mar!

The exchange started off as usual. I noticed that my buddy, Jen, had marked a date to go check a gig by El Perro Del Mar. Knowing what I know of Jen's musical inclinations, I was a bit surprised that she'd be into EPDM, and I mentioned it to her. She was more into the whole Swedish pop singer thing, really, than she was into EPDM. In fact, she hadn't really heard any of the songs at all, so I steered some her way. Jen quickly decided that, yes, EPDM was not her cup of tea. I thought the album was okay, but it didn't really grab me the way I thought it would. We talked a bit about the things we didn't like on the album, her whiny-ass voice, the dreary pace, the tunelessness. Jen said it best, the girl sang like she was about to have a nervous breakdown, and I agreed. That should have been the end of it, but it goes on slightly.

For some reason, I thought I'd give the album, "Look! It's El Perro Del Mar!", another listen and so I dropped it onto my iPod. This time, it completely hooked me. She does sound whiny and like she's about to have a breakdown, but her voice is very pretty if you can get past those pitfalls. Musically, it's kinda like the soundtrack to a dark, twisted fairy tale. The backing vocals lend this eerie quality to it, sometimes conjuring up an image of a choir of disembodied children in a horror movie musical. Also, she reminds me of Julee Cruise quite a bit. You may remember her as the singer of the Twin Peaks theme song, "Falling".

So the moral of the story is that I am now a fan of the album and Jen is gonna give me shit the next time she drives past this page. Which is fine on both counts. I've been known to change my mind when the mood strikes, and even though our tastes are frequently on opposite ends of the spectrum, they collide every once in a while.

This is one of the more upbeat tracks from the album, I love it long time. Maybe you will as well.

Listen:
El Perro Del Mar > It's All Good

*P.S. >> I'm trying this filesharing site called zSHARE.net. At zSHARE, the files are up for unlimited downloads, but the file gets deleted if it's not downloaded for ten days. Also, it says you're able to listen first before downloading, unlike yousendit.com. So yeah, I'm gonna try it too, but lemme know if it's cool or not.

5 comments:

Sarah said...

She's very pretty!!

robot hero said...

Completely!

Anonymous said...

Oh dang! Caught out. Shit.

I just listened to that song, and I still cannot stand her voice! It's not going to work for me. It's just so weak, but it SOUNDS like she could really sing if she wanted to, but simply isn't making the effort, so she lets her voice just sit on a few notes, crackling away. Maybe the song I heard her singing with Jens Lekman wasn't her as she was strong on that song.

I like the music (well, this song, which is definitely the most upbeat on the record you have), but with those tunes, I want a strong, confident female voice.

And indeed it is such a shame I don't like her music, because I would like to lay eyes on her!

Anonymous said...

Oh, by the way, the zSHARE is passable, but it requires too many clicks to get to open/save the song, and is confusing. Plus, it downloaded way slower than yousendit does.

robot hero said...

I have to say, I'm liking the zSHARE because you can sample the track first before downloading it, as opposed to blindly downloading it. Granted, it doesn't take much to delete a track from your drive, but sometimes it's nice to know what you're downloading. I see what you're saying about the navigation, tho, it's not as intuitive.