GLISSANDRO 70 – G70 2: Bones Of Dundasa – LP – 180g Black Vinyl [MAY 1]

LP – 180g Black Vinyl in 300gsm jacket + 300gsm inner both printed LE-UV on reverse board + DL card.

20 years after its self-titled debut, Glissandro 70s follow-up straddles the Album and Archive. Comprised of a decades worth of recordings that were abandoned, lost in a hard drive mishap, recovered in the form of rough stereo mixes, reappraised with the balm of time, and restored/augmented/enhanced, they are finally seeing the light of day.

Back in 2016, Craig Dunsmuir asked Sandro Perri to meet for a drink, and dropped a bomb: those recordings theyd been working on over the past few years? Well, hed gotten cold feet and wanted to shelve them. Perri then dropped a bomb of his own: hed accidentally deleted those very same recordings during a computer upgrade. Hesitation had met destruction, the double negative all but sealing the materials fate. It was meant to disappear, says Perri. When the COVID lockdowns hit, Perri began poring through his vast archive of old recordings and works-in-progress, and though the Glissandro 70 multi-track sessions were definitely gone, in early 2024 he discovered rough stereo mixes on another hard drive. By his own admission, it felt really good. The aging process flattered it. It was like, oh, maybe it’s time to try and do something with this. By that point, Dunsmuir was also primed for the works reappraisal, as hed loved how Perri repurposed some of their other collab material for his second Off World LP. A meticulous rediscovery and re-creation process began in earnest.

Glissandro 70s beguiling mechanics are perhaps best understood through the dissonance of the duos respective approaches as solo artists and bandleaders. Dunsmuir, a human music encyclopedia and 20-year veteran of Toronto record stores, leads the Dun-Dun Band, a group that mines the ferment of three towering Fs (Fela, Philip, Pharaoh). Equally inspired by math-rock, Dunsmuirs scrumptious G70 riffs dont aestheticize complexity or pester the listener into noting theyre in 13/8: rather, rhythm materializes as a mere fact of the riff, sharing more with the tranced coalescences of gnawa and afrobeat. Perri is the consummate studio dog and might be Torontos own Caetano Veloso, crafting loose, sprawling songs of quixotic beauty whose textural virtuosity and joy in repetition refashions pop music into sound sculpture. Together, theyre each others perfect foils, and Glissandro 70 is also informed by the intersection of their respective leftfield electronic projects, Kanada 70 and Off World. On G70 2: Bones Of Dundasa, Dunsmuir plays the role of riff referee, while Perri assumes the mantle of jester, destabilizing the obstinate ostinatos with his signature textural tics, editing, and dubby interjections.

G70 2: Bones Of Dundasa begins in recognisable territory with an expansive 8-minute workout of Arthur Russells Lucky Cloud, where Dunsmuir trades the originals murk for an achingly vulnerable vocal that sits somewhere between Rick White and Lou Barlow, while Russell collaborator Peter Zummos trombone contribution is teased with a single squelch at 0:37 before playing out the songs hypnotic second half in a beautifully oblique and restrained excursion. On an album of bookends, this opener is itself a bookend: its the albums first recording chronologically (from 2004) and contains its last recorded element (Zummos trombone, from 2025), making it simultaneously the oldest and newest track on the record.

Such oceanic sound is then immediately dammed up and a series of diverse experimental tracks escape in drips and drops, like strummed elastic bands rendered crystalline through Perris crisp production. Second song Jackpot Pothole Eleven introduces the albums prevailing spirit of disturbance, discontinuity, and a plunderphonic playfulness that bubbles up within various subsequent tracks. As the album proceeds, G70s departure from its 2006 record come into focus: where riffs on the 5-song debut anchored durational mantras in the 7-13 minute range, these new tracks relish in their incidental intentionality, compact strangeness, and comparative brevity. Sometimes there arent riffs at all, acceding instead to Dunsmuirs vintage Roland HandSonic drum pad (literally pictured on the back cover album art) which he works into damaged prisms of jagged angles, funneled through Perris alluring mutations.

Darker, muggier vibes are also part of the mix, notably on the sultry cover of Moondogs You The Vandal and the skittish industrial stutter of Aquatint, where Dunsmuir draws on his love for early post-dubstepa fractured-beat sensibility that also rises to the fore on Howler Hiccup (VC-10 Eternal Selectric). Pad Tide references both the Eventide H3000 used to thicken up the songs drum machine and Dunsmuirs preferred dish at Torontos Ph Phng, where he and Perri frequently dined. Elsewhere, Ryan Driver and Jeremy Strachan contribute flute and saxophone respectively, each laid over Dunsmuirs handmade HandSonic beats and providing two different expressions of the skewed-lounge post-tropicalia that often lurks in much of Perris other musics. The albums closing track hands the sampledelic floor to Dan Bodans previously unreleased 2006 remix of Bolan Muppets from Glissandro 70s debuta fitting 20th anniversary ribbon to wrap up the effervescent revivification celebrated on G70 2: Bones Of Dundasa.

RIYL: Sandro Perri, Arthur Russell, Cluster, Beak>, Boredoms, Sun Araw, Black Dice, Tortoise.

Tracklist:

1. Lucky Cloud (ft. Peter Zummo)
2. Jackpot Pothole Eleven
3. Tomber
4. Aquatint
5. Pad Tide
6. Vila Inerane
7. Howler Hiccup (VC-10 Eternal Selectric)
8. I’m Honkin’ Here
9. Five Five Three (ft. Jeremy Strachan)
10. Five Three Three (ft. Ryan Driver)
11. You The Vandal
12. Bolan Muppets (Dan Bodan Remix)