“Quite literally a work of pure fiction” – Sandro Perri
Off World presents the final album in its trilogy of surreal and spacious leftfield electronics. “A stellar project headed by Sandro Perri, one of the most singular producers in contemporary music” (Boomkat), this third volume is another distinctive collection of tracks constructed from semi-improvised ensemble recordings made over the past decade with a varied cast of co-conspirators. Drew Brown, Matthew Cooper, Susumu Mukai and Andrew Zukerman join Perri again on a variety of synths and machines, along with violinist Jesse Zubot (Tanya Tagaq, Fond Of Tigers). Perri also continues to add organ and piano to the mix, while Volume 3 notably features first-time Off World contributors Nicole Rampersaud on trumpet and Martin Arnold on guitar, both mainstays of Toronto’s vibrant improv and out-music scenes.
The Quietus calls Off World “genuinely explorative…the musical equivalent of a Dali-esque landscape” which through all sorts of genre-defying twists and turns, at times evokes “off-kilter, late Miles Davis ambience”. Off World 3 doubles down on that jazz-adjacent trope in certain respects, while holding fast to Pitchfork’s dictum that Perri “cultivates his own genreless brand of futurism.” Marked by longer tracks than previous collections, three of the album’s five songs clock in around the 10-minute mark, where overtly improvised instrumental playing wends its way across alternately bubbling and woozy electronic beds. “Impulse Controller” is a languidly skewed rhumba where ambling melodic undercurrents and dubby electronic pointillism provide a dulcet promenade for Rampersaud’s Miles-esque trumpet excursions. “Ludic Loop” see-saws along in a slow synthy two-step, punctuated by Perri’s restrained piano chords and Arnold’s fried electric guitar. “Empasse” is perhaps most reminiscent of earlier Off World collections, though again slowed and stretched, with oozing synth bass ostinatos counterposed by ambient layers of viola and violin filigree from Zubot.
These three centerpiece longform tracks each highlight one of the album’s instrumental improvisers, and taken together, make for the most scintillating sedate and ruminant album in the trilogy. Off World 3 sounds as sui generis as ever, but in wrapping up the series, Perri sprinkles the project’s emblematic alien surrealism with decidedly anthropic elements and temporalities. This final volume in the trilogy could also be seen as a re-statement of Perri’s politico-aesthetic mission, as aptly celebrated by Pitchfork and its glowing 8.0+ reviews of Perri’s 2018/2019 solo albums In Another Life and Soft Landing (released between Off World 2 and the present volume): a uniquely purposeful, subtly detailed cannon of songs “busy, vibrant, and bursting with life, but that aren’t ever in a rush to get anywhere.”
“Impulse Controller” showcases the exploratory trumpet excursions of Nicole Rampersaud (whose credits/collaborations include Anthony Braxton, Joseph Shabason, Marilyn Lerner) winding through a signature Off World landscape of languid squelching electronic rhumba, with drum machine by Susumu Mukai (Floating Points, Vanishing Twin, Zongamin), modular synth and samples by Matthew Cooper (Eluvium, Inventions) and Drew Brown (Motion Graphics, Blonde Redhead, Lower Dens) respectively, both co-engineers of Off World 3 along with project leader Sandro Perri, who contributes percussion and keyboards on this cut. An early mix of the track was released in 2021 as part of the Corona Borealis Longform Singles Series (a pandemic initiative by Constellation), now given much fuller and definitive treatment. The Quietus presciently characterized previous Off World albums as the”musical equivalent of a Dali-esque landscape” occasionally evoking “off-kilter, late Miles Davis ambience” even though no trumpet had actually appeared on Off World tracks…until now. “Impulse Controller” rather uncannily fits this retroactive description to a tee.
Well into a decade of their existence, Off World present 3, their poignant swan song – a planned conclusion to a trio of releases begun in 2016. The project is built around numerous and varied collaborations, helmed by producer Sandro Perri. Perri has worked with Constellation since 2003 and is one of the label’s most artistically diverse music makers.
“Quite literally a work of pure fiction” is the way that Perri describes the exploratory synth project Off World. Perri’s reference is to the composition process – the ways in which the unrelated performances, sound worlds, and audio files were fused together to create something entirely new.
Chiefly a studio-based endeavour, 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, the project expanded to encompass collaborations between Perri and many others.
Off World 1 was released in Sept 2010, and featured Drew Brown (Lower Dens, Blonde Redhead, Beck), Susumu Mukai (Holy Tongue, Vanishing Twin, Zongamin), M J Silver (Mickey Moonlight), Mike Smith, Jesse Zubot (Zubot and Dawson, Great Uncles of the Revolution, Fond of Tigers), and Andrew Zukerman. Boomkat described it as “some of the most inventive, spellbinding work in [Perri’s] catalogue…one of the most original and satisfying albums we’ve heard this year”, whilst The Line Of Best Fit wrote, “Space isn’t just an allusion on 1, it is a guiding principle.”
Off World 2 was released in Oct 2017, and featured Drew Brown, Eric Chenaux, Matthew Cooper, Craig Dunsmuir (Glissandro 70, Kanada 70), Brandon Hocura, Susumu Mukai and Lorenz Peter. It was a record which The Quietus deemed to be “genuinely explorative… demonstrating an unusually considerable balance of precision, cautiousness and imagination.” Meanwhile, Echoes and Dust described the album “… much like how an experience on some distant planet would be, one that feels like the home we’ve come from, but works on a different set of rules to what we’re normally used to. Familiar, and yet alien.”
The music that yielded from these many and varied collaborations is strange, hypnotic and charming, conjuring the image of a lonely drone trucking over the surface of another world and the sights it captures on its mission.
The Wire magazine featured the project in their Nov 2017 issue and shared unreleased tracks from a range of producers involved in the project. Details here.
Returning members for Off World 3 include Susumu Mukai, Drew Brown, Matthew Cooper (Eluvium), Jesse Zubot and Andrew Zukerman. Nicole Rampersaud (horn, Eucalyptus, Joseph Shabason, James Irwin, AIM Toronto Orchestra) and Martin Arnold (electric guitar) enter the fold as new participants.
Off World 3 arrives on Constellation on 03 November 2023, and Sandro Perri is working on new material that should surface in 2024.