Sarah Assbring, the driving force behind the wonderful El Perro Del Mar, is back! I don’t know how I missed this one, but the lady responsible for one of my favorite records of ‘06 is releasing From the Valley to the Stars, the follow-up to her self-titled debut, this year.

Over at Licking Fingers, her label’s website, you can now stream “How Did We Forget?”, the first song from her new record, and, well, it’s fantastic. A little sweeter than anything off of El Perro Del Mar, the song sounds a bit more like the perfectly produced indiepop of someone like The Clientele than the epic swells of Phil Spector. That being said, everything that made the first El Perro Del Mar record so great is still here: girl-group harmonies, sad introspection, and soft R&B and soul flurries (the horns in the chorus are nearly perfect).

This has just become my most anticipated record of ‘08.