G70 2: Bones Of Dundasa

Description

twenty years after his first self-titled album, Glissandro 70's second opus stands at the crossroads between an album and archives. Composed of a decade's worth of abandoned recordings, lost due to a hard drive accident, rediscovered in the form of raw stereo mixes, reevaluated over time, then restored, enriched, and enhanced, they finally see the light of day. The enchanting mechanics of Glissandro 70 are better understood through the dissonance of the respective approaches of the two members as solo artists and band leaders. Craig Dunsmuir, a true musical encyclopedia and Toronto record store owner for twenty years, leads the Dun-Dun Band, a group drawing inspiration from the world of three great names in rock (Fela, Philip, and Pharaoh). Although inspired by math-rock, the tasty riffs of G70, composed by Dunsmuir, do not seek to aestheticize complexity or annoy the listener with the notion of 13/8. The rhythm materializes rather as a simple component of the riff, sharing more with afrobeat, another source of inspiration for Dunsmuir. Sandro Perri, a true studio beast, could be the Toronto Caetano Veloso, creating expansive and abundant pieces of quixotic beauty, where textural virtuosity and the pleasure of repetition transform pop music into sound sculpture. Together, they complement each other wonderfully, and Glissandro 70 is also influenced by the convergence of their respective alternative electronic projects, Kanada 70 and Off World. On G70 2: Bones Of Dundasa, Dunsmuir plays the role of riff arbiter, while Perri takes on the role of jester, destabilizing the "stubborn ostinatos" with his characteristic textural tics, mix, and dub interventions. In 2016, Dunsmuir emailed Perri to suggest they meet for a drink. Perri said it was a good idea because he had something to announce. At the bar, Dunsmuir dropped a bombshell: the recordings they had worked on over the past few years… well, he had doubts and wanted to set them aside. Perri then dropped another bombshell: he had accidentally deleted those same recordings during a computer update. Perri eventually found raw stereo mixes on another hard drive. When lockdowns were implemented, he began sifting through his old recordings, but it wasn't until 2024 that he listened to the mixes again. "Time had sublimated them. So I thought: maybe it's time to try to make something out of it." Dunsmuir was on board, and the two men set to work preparing the material for release. The album opens on familiar ground with an expansive version of "Lucky Cloud" by Arthur Russell. Dunsmuir swaps the dark atmosphere of the original for a voice of poignant vulnerability, halfway between Rick White and Lou Barlow. Trombonist Peter Zummo, a collaborator of