El Perro Del Mar and Taken By Trees Get Swedey at the Triple Door

Friday night, the Triple Door was full of music fans eating and drinking and taking in the Swedish singer-songwriter double-header. (It goes without saying that, as always, the service at the Triple Door was impeccable.) First up was Taken By Trees, ex-Concretes' Victoria Bergsman's multi-culti solo project.  She recorded her last full-length, East of Eden, in Pakistan, so on the album, as well as live, there's all the exotic sounds of Central Asia side by side with Victoria's chilly Swedish voice and low-key stage presence (see "To Lose Someone" above). 

To be fair, Taken by Trees did partner their live performance with a video running behind the band featuring repetitive images of snow leopards, tigers, and other cute kitties--so I'm not complaining. Her cover of Animal Collective's "My Girls" ("My Boys," also on East of Eden) was well-received, and Victoria brought it back home by closing her set with a song in Swedish.

Meanwhile, El Perro Del Mar (aka Sarah Assbring) took the stage with a lot of energy and a supercute bat-winged romper (see "Let Me In" below).  Taken by Trees' set was downright sedate compared to El Perro Del Mar, who bopped along with every song, dancing happily to sad topics, like getting ready to tell your boyfriend you want to break up ("Gotta Get Smart") or reminiscing about an ex you didn't deserve ("A Better Love").  She performed both her cover of the XX's "Shelter" (see the video in this post) and Lou Reed's "Heavenly Arms."

For the most part, the set leaned towards El Perro Del Mar's most recent album, Love is Not Pop, though she did a version of "Party" (from her self-titled release) that was just a hair away from being a dance remix.  Comparing her newer music to her debut, it seems now she's happier with open emotion, that she's able to dance and sing about the heartbreak, instead of just moping around.  It's fun to watch for sure, but that doesn't sound very Swedish, if you ask me.