Sandro Perri

Toronto native Sandro Perri launched his circuitous path through performance and production by issuing a 12" under the Polmo Polpo moniker in 1999. Drawing equal impetus from '60s surf-pop producer Joe Meek and the minimal techno imprint Basic Channel, those initial outings blended languid electronic pulses with understated live instrumentation. Four Polmo Polpo 12"s appeared on his own Audi Sensa label before their contents were gathered on the 2002 compilation The Science of Breath. International attention followed the proper Polmo Polpo full-length debut, Like Hearts Swelling, in 2003, which also secured an invitation to that year's All Tomorrow's Parties festival in London. Shifting to his own name in 2006, Perri drastically revised the material from Like Hearts Swelling on the EP Sandro Perri Plays Polmo Polpo, favoring electro-acoustic textures over electronic ones and introducing plainspoken vocals to tracks that had once been purely instrumental. His first album under his given name, the 2007 release Tiny Mirrors, pursued a fragile folk-inflected direction grounded in post-rock improvisation while paying tribute to another key touchstone, N.Y.C. downtown avant-disco figure Arthur Russell, whose song "Kiss Me Again" Perri had already reinterpreted in a sprawling twenty-eight-minute version. Beyond his own catalog under both aliases, Perri joined earthy ensembles such as Barzin and Great Lake Swimmers, pursued one-off projects including Dot Wiggin alongside the late Todd Fox and Glissandro 70 with Craig Dunsmuir, and lent production support to sessions by Devon Sproule, Steven Malkmus, and Grizzly Bear's Owen Pallett. Between ongoing tours, collaborations, and studio work, he gradually assembled his second proper album, the 2011 set Impossible Spaces.