"It's my great pleasure to open up this tour," said Anna Ternheim, first up on the stage at Johnny Brenda's. She'd just begun with her brooding break-up tune "You Mean Nothing to Me Anymore" in full-bodied voice and playing acoustic guitar ("It was supposed to be a happy song," she later joked).

"Something so amazing: Three Swedish girls going on tour together; we're all blond even," Ternheim said. "And we've got a tour bus - it's blue and yellow. . . ." That cryptic reference to Sweden's traditional colors - familiar to IKEA shoppers, seen in Philadelphia's flag for noted historical reasons and, similarly, in those lucky Eagles throwback jerseys last season - was the night's only direct reference to things Swedish.

Except . . . Ternheim's material did offer an artful gloominess one might associate with a classic Bergman flick. An original piano-driven stalker tale from her Lovers Dream & More Music For Psychotic Lovers EP was sufficiently haunting. She delivered a Fleetwood Mac cover, Christine McVie's post-relationship "Little Lies," in a strong yet resigned tone, sounding a bit like Beth Orton, even Marianne Faithfull - with a Swedish accent.

The world has long heard pop stars singing with Scandinavian inflections - Abba, Ace of Base, Norway's Annie - and just this last week brought a minor invasion to Philly, with Robyn on Wednesday, and Iceland's Helgi Jonsson and Teitur, pride of the Denmark-administered Faroe Islands, together at Johnny Brenda's last Friday.

Of the recent visitors, Tuesday's nominal headliner, El Perro del Mar, may be the most stylistically diverse. Sarah Assbring of Gothenburg (Sweden's second city) assumes the El Perro stage name (she says the name, "the dog of the sea," was inspired by an encounter with a pooch on a Spanish beach).

Playing acoustic guitar or percussion, she led a band of two keyboards, bass and drums. She negotiated a wide range from the ethereal-voiced shoegazer-esque balladry of "Do Not Despair" off her brand new From the Valley to the Stars album to the infectious Spector-ian girl-group stomp of the older "God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get)."

She brought out Lykke Li to guest on some tunes before turning over the stage to the dance-happy 22-year-old singer for her own set. The cooing Li whipped up a winning electro-pop froth, looking not unlike a young Liv Ullman channeling Madonna.