IFLTS: 'I Can't Talk About It,' El Perro del Mar

'I Can't Talk About It,' El Perro del Mar
From 2006's 'El Perro del Mar'

To tell you true, I freakin' love most of the songs on the debut LP by El Perro del Mar, a.k.a. Swedish singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sarah Assbring. But that ain't the rules of this game. So out comes the dartboard, and I choose 'I Can't Talk About It,' which, like the entire collection of songs on the album, is a mishmash of Brill Building sass and Ingmar Bergman mope that could come only from someone constantly subjected to Sweden's long, dark and very, very cold winters.

Assbring, who plays everything but drums on the track, contorts her usually high and wispy voice into a Dusty Springfield plaintive yelp, repeating the line "I can't really talk about it" until it goes from being a lyric to a mantra to a warning. All the while, massed "oooh"/"aaah" backing vocals, a tympani and an uptempo Motown-inspired foursquare beat from a much happier song support her. The result is girl-group music tailor-made for the most melancholy go-go discotheque in Scandinavia.

Hear the song after the jump.

Buy it on iTunes