Don’t let the innocence of Sarah Assbring’s childlike falsetto lull you into thinking her El Perro Del Mar alias is some kind of exercise in sonic preciousness. Sure, the Swedish songstress’ second full-length album From the Valley to the Stars relies on an inordinate amount of wooden flute melodies and lush arrangements, but as the title suggests, it’s more of a marriage of pastoral and celestial sensibilities. At 16 tracks, these aren’t so much songs as musical ideas collected together in an album-length arc exploring jubilation (“Jubilee”), brightness (“The Sun Is an Old Friend”) and eternity (“You Belong to the Sky Now,” “Your Name is Neverending”). Surprisingly, the most attractive elements of the album come in the form of doo-wop-ish post-Motown twee pop like “Into the Sunshine,” “How Did We Forget?” and “Somebody’s Baby” (not to be confused with Jackson Browne’s teen anthem of the same name). But thanks to Assbring’s production prowess as well as her inviting voice, any stylistic incongruity dissipates into the album’s conceptual ether. 

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