MW Questionnaire: SANDRO PERRI

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SANDRO PERRI

(POLMO POLPO, GLISSANDRO 70, OFF WORLD )

answers the MUSIC WORKS Questionnaire

1. QUALIFICATIONS?
Music theory in school and with private teachers.
2. CREATIVE LIFE HIGHLIGHTS?
To work on music is itself the highlight for me.
3. AMBITIONS?
To play in an anti-gravity chamber
4. SONGS YOU WISH YOU HAD WRITTEN?
“The Next Time Might Be Your Time” – Blue Gene Tyranny
5. DESERT ISLAND DISCS?
Caetano Veloso – s/t (London)
Van Morrison – Veedon Fleece
Sonny Sharrock – Ask the Ages
Giancarlo Vulcano – Vetro
Ween – Pure Guava
Manuel Gottsching – E2E4
Phalanx – Original Phalanx
Arthur Russell – Instrumentals
Bob Dylan – Desire
Miles Davis – On The Corner
6. FAVOURITE ARTISTS/BANDS OF ALL TIME?
There are hundreds, from different periods in my life. Robert Altman, Caetano Veloso, Ennio Morricone, Eric Dolphy, Bob Dylan, Jorge Ben, Ron Mael, Arthur Russell, Sonny Sharrock…hundreds more.
7. WHAT MUSIC ARE YOU LISTENING TO NOW?
Mostly I listen to Van Morrison, but also lately:
Philip John Lewin – Diamond Love
John Angaiak – I’m Lost in the City
Dory Previn – Mythical Kings & Iguanas
Jimmy Campbell – Jimmy Campbell’s Album
Pharaoh Sanders – Pharoah
8. THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?
“Unlearning with Hannah Arendt” – Marie Luise Knott
“What are People For?” – Wendell Berry
9. HOBBIES?
Music, books, swimming, cooking, movies
10. VINYL, CASSETTE, CD, MP3, WEB STREAMING?
Vinyl, MP3, streaming, CD, cassette
11. INDIE MUSIC IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET?
A blessing and a curse
12. WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL MOTTO?
Never trust anyone who mistakes certainties for wisdom


Off World

2

CONSTELLATION CST 127 – 180gLP MP3 FLAC

LP is pressed on 180 gram audiophile vinyl at Optimal (Germany) and comes in a heavyweight 24pt jacket printed on 100% recycled Orford paperboard, with a 12″x24″ art poster, 12″x12″ credit insert, and download code for 320kbps MP3. All printed on uncoated papers and boards, featuring artwork by early 20th century painter Karl Sirovy.

Release date: 06 October 2017

Tracklist
1. Wet Max
2. Island Fanfare
3. Scrubdown
4. Memory Drip
5. The Mask
6. Play Room
7. Night Valve
8. Decamp
9. Satellite Beach
10. The Grail

Personnel
Drew Brown: electronics (tracks 2 & 8)
Eric Chenaux: guitar, percussion (track 10)
Matthew Cooper: electronics (track 8)
Craig Dunsmuir: bass, guitar, percussion (tracks 1, 6 & 7)
Brandon Hocura: electronics (track 7)
Susumu Mukai: drum machine, electronics, guitar (tracks 1, 2 & 8)
Sandro Perri: bass, drum machine, electronics, guitar, piano (all tracks)
Lorenz Peter: drum machine, electronics (tracks 3, 5 & 9)
Produced by Off World.

Recorded at The Hospital (London), 6 Nassau (Toronto), Polyphasic (Toronto), Sonology (Toronto) and various home studios.
Engineers: Drew Brown, Eric Chenaux, Matthew Cooper, Craig Dunsmuir, Brandon Hocura, Sandro Perri, MJ Silver.
Additional production and mixing by Sandro Perri.
Trans-Atlantic sound processing by MJ Silver.
Mastered by Harris Newman.

One of 2016’s strangest, most hypnotic and charming albums of experimental synth-electronic incursions/excursions was the first collection of Off World tracks, simply titled “1”. This is the next installment, mysteriously titled “2”.

Sandro Perri is one of Constellation’s most long-standing and artistically diverse music-makers. The celebrated Toronto-based composer, producer and songwriter first released albums of hissing, pulsing, longform instrumental work under the Polmo Polpo moniker in the early 2000s, then moved into tropicalia-, jazz- and prog-influenced vocal music under his own name (with forays into dub and afro-beat tinged jams via Glissandro 70, his duo with Craig Dunsmuir).

Perri has been drip-feeding Constellation LP-length bundles of tracks cured and curated from a fascinating treasure chest of strange and enchanting collaborative recordings – rich in deconstructed melody and rhythm, pointillist and aleatory composition techniques, primarily employing a wide array of vintage synths and drum machines.  This bounty of private and previously unreleased tracks has been accumulating for some time and we’re excited to present the second of three volumes of this material, rounded up under the project name Off World.

Perri will be the first to insist that Off World is not “his” project: tracing its origins as far back as 2008, with Perri and fellow Torontonian Lorenz Peter (Processor, Corpusse) working together on tracks and very occasionally performing live, Off World collaborators include producers Drew Brown (Lower Dens, Blonde Redhead, Beck), Matthew Cooper (Eluvium) and Susumu Mukai (Zongamin), and instrumentalists Craig Dunsmuir (Glissandro 70, Kanada 70) and Eric Chenaux, among others.

Off World is alien electronics played humanly, resulting in genuinely exploratory and peculiarly sui generis electronic music that sounds like it could have issued from any time in the past 40-50 years. Off World resists easy categorization: not ambient, not strictly “improvised”, nor “retro” – just eccentrically absorbing, impishly stimulating and gently uneasy listening in an awkward, nerdy, precocious class of its own.

Sandro Perri makes music within a broad spectrum of sound as a composer, producer, instrumentalist and singer. Between 1999 – 2002, he operated a 12″ label (Audi Sensa) for his early music as Polmo Polpo (solo) and Dot Wiggin (in collaboration with Todd Fox). Both projects explored electronic dance music at its fringes, using repetitive rhythms, dub production, lap steel guitar, cello and electronics. Some of this music was compiled and released on The Science Of Breath. In 2003, Perri recorded a 28-minute cover of Arthur Russell / Dinosaur L’s Kiss Me Again, blending his love of disco and drone music. That same year, Constellation Records released his debut full-length, Like Hearts Swelling, 5 tracks of looped strings, guitar, percussion and electronics, creating a meditative record of “perfectly structured, unstructured sound” (Pitchfork).
In 2004, Perri swapped his sample-based, electronic approach for live instrumentation, forming a band and reshaping his instrumental pieces into vocal songs. Some of this was documented in 2006 on Plays Polmo Polpo, which was said to sound “like his earlier music coming apart at the seams” (Dusted Magazine). He continued this approach in 2007 with Tiny Mirrors, a record of original songs sent askew with Ryan Driver, Eric Chenaux and several others in the Toronto avant-jazz/improvising community. Throughout this period, Perri continued to explore dance music with Craig Dunsmuir in Glissandro 70. Looping guitars, odd-time rhythms and “chants”, they melded elements of dance, math rock and “fourth-world” into their debut LP, released in 2006.
In 2011, Perri released Impossible Spaces, a record which further combined his interests in songwriting, electronics and production. Music critics called it one of the “Top 50 Records of 2011” (Pitchfork) as well as one of the “Top 50 Toronto Records of All Time” (Now Magazine). 12” remixes of this material were released by DFA Records, Phonica and Constellation.
His latest project, Off World began as an improvised electronic duo with Lorenz Peter in 2008, but has since expanded to include a wealth of recorded material and collaborators including Drew Brown, Susumu Mukai (Zongamin), M J Silver (Mickey Moonlight), Craig Dunsmuir and Eric Chenaux. Constellation released the debut LP 1 in September 2016. In the studio, Perri has provided various levels of assistance as producer, tracking, mix, remix and mastering engineer to a range of artists in Canada and abroad. A comprehensive list of this work can be found HERE. In addition to studio work, he played lap steel guitar with folk-pop group Great Lake Swimmers between 2000-2005.
In live performance, both solo and with band he has appeared at Primavera Sound, All Tomorrow’s Parties, MUTEK, Wordless Music Series, MOMA PS/1 Warmup, Suoni Per Il Popolo, Nuit Blanche, and various other festivals since 2003. Perri received composition and recording grants from the Toronto, Ontario and Canadian Arts Councils in 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2015.

September 19, 2017


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