The Toronto duo’s second LP reconstructs sessions recorded between 2005 and 2015, recovered after an accidental deletion and released on Constellation on 1 May 2026

Transmission 331: Interview with Glissandro 70

Featured image: Colin Medley

Title: Glissandro 70
Artist: Glissandro 70
Release Date: 2026-05-01
Genres: Ambient, Avant-garde, Electronica, Experimental Music
Label: Constellation
Description: Glissandro 70 interview: Craig Dunsmuir and Sandro Perri on G70 2: Bones Of Dundasa, out May 2026 on Constellation.

Glissandro 70 is the Toronto-based duo of Craig Dunsmuir and Sandro Perri, formed in 2003 as a studio project built around longform loop-based guitar and rhythm experimentation. Their self-titled debut appeared on Constellation in 2006, drawing on Dunsmuir’s afrobeat preoccupations and Perri’s tropicalia alongside a shared interest in Arthur Russell and dub techno. The two largely pursued separate projects in the years that followed: Perri moved from his ambient electronic alias Polmo Polpo into singer-songwriter albums under his own name and the electronic collaborations of Off World; Dunsmuir continued under the Guitarkestra and Kanada 70 monikers and led the Dun-Dun Band, a group oriented around Fela Kuti, Philip Glass, and Pharoah Sanders.

G70 2: Bones Of Dundasa arrives twenty years after the debut. The album is drawn from sessions recorded between 2005 and 2015 that were shelved in 2016, accidentally deleted, and subsequently recovered in stereo mixdown form from a secondary hard drive in 2024. The recovered material was then edited, processed, and augmented — with trombone overdubs contributed by Peter Zummo recorded in 2025 — before being sequenced into the eleven-track LP out on Constellation on 1 May 2026.

What were your earliest musical influences before you started creating your own?

Craig Dunsmuir: That would take me back to the turn of the ’80s into the ’90s, since soon after starting to get obsessed with taping pop hits off the radio in the late ’80s and very early ’90s, Nirvana showed up on those same pop radio stations in late 1991/1992, which soon led me to instead tune into the local alternative radio station (which had started as a Anglophilic station playing mostly UK bands before incorporating American acts, although CanCon regulations meant that a decent amount of local music was played too). By the mid-’90s I’d also started tuning into a couple of Toronto’s campus/community radio stations, as well as the late-night/overnight program, Brave New Waves, on our national broadcaster, CBC, whose influence and eclecticism could be compared to the John Peel show. Sonic Youth and Eric’s Trip would be the two other most notable gateway bands for me at that time in terms of broadening my taste within underground rock music and beyond into adjacent subcultures. (I, like scores of other people my age, played in a grunge-damaged alternative rock band in high school, and then took it from there.)

Sandro Perri: Earliest songs I can remember liking are “123456789101112” from Sesame Street, “All Shook Up” by Elvis, “Imagine” by John Lennon, “Call Me” by Blondie and “Shappad You Face” by Joe Dolce. Also “Big Balls” by AC/DC and all the Cheech & Chong songs.

How did your paths first cross, and what made you realize you should collaborate?

CD: In 2003 (or maybe even the latter half of 2002), our mutual friend/associate here in the Toronto music scene, Jonathan Bunce a.k.a. Jonny Dovercourt, a founder of the Wavelength music series, took part in a Chicago-based ‘audio zine’ where a previous installment of collaborators were then tasked with suggesting/matchmaking the next pair of people to contribute to the project. Jonny was the previous participant in this series, knew both of us, and was curious as to what the results of us working together might be. He might have emailed each of us independently beforehand, but I recall first talking to Sandro by going up to him at the merch table he had set up at the Wavelength 150 on Feb 13th, 2003 at Lee’s Palace, where he was performing solo as Polmo Polpo. Later that year, we collaborated on a piece called “Somethings” (plural), which was then edited down to the opening track “Something” (singular) on our 2006 debut.

Why was 2026 the right moment to finally “resurrect” Glissandro 70?

CD: I suppose the ‘resurrection’ initially took place in early 2024, when Sandro discovered that the sessions he thought were completely lost back in 2016 were recoverable in stereo mixdown form–that then led to us (well, mainly Sandro, with me chiming in both in person on occasion as well as over email) restoring, sequencing, completing (eg. asking Peter Zummo to kindly contribute his trombone overdubs) and editing the tracks before then pitching this sequel album to CST.

SP: Also it’s been 20 years since our first LP and who doesn’t love the anniversary announcement??

How has the city’s musical landscape changed since your debut, and does that reflect in the new album?

CD: The changes in Toronto’s music landscape which are reflected in the ‘new’ album are generally more reflective of what had changed by the early-to-mid 2010s, since most of the tracks on Bones are taken from sessions that took place around that time. There were some exciting developments here in that era that come to mind as being very influential on me personally, in particular meeting Brandon and Naomi Hocura as well as Gary Abugan and Joe Calta, and the period of time where they, alongside Wolfgang Nessel and Victoria Cheong (who were already putting out projects on their Healing Power imprint) joined forces to throw some memorable dance parties.

SP: The local improvised and ‘new music’ scene was also important to us. Our thing became less grid / guitar-focused and more untethered.

Your album title evokes a very specific, almost mystical imagery. How would you describe the “landscape” of Dundasa to someone who has never heard your music?

CD: The landscape is flat and a bit curved. Pieces of the past are glued on clumsily. You can roll it into a tube as long as you are careful. (It could easily be mistaken for Bristol board.)

When you thought the files were deleted forever, did you feel a sense of loss or liberation?

CD: Personally, both, I think? I had more hangups about making music back then, which I’ve hopefully grown out of, although I suspect not completely.

SP: A bit of both.

If these recordings were originally meant to disappear, how do you feel about them now being “fixed” in time forever on a physical LP?

CD: I for one am relieved that the disappearance was incomplete and temporary.

SP: Blessed and relieved.

What was the specific track that made you realize these old recordings were actually “good enough” to finish?

CD: I wouldn’t go that far, but “Aquatint” has always particularly excited me, perhaps in large part because of how much of an outlier it is (although there’s also a ‘loosie’ single, contributed to a compilation released by the above-mentioned Nessel and Cheong’s Healing Power label, that could be considered its sibling track).

SP: All of them but “Vila Inerane” really stood the test of time for me. A shout out to Sun Araw might be in order, we are both big fans of his work.

How do you think these songs benefited from sitting on a hard drive for a decade?

CD: I’ll leave it to Sandro to answer this one, since his editing and processing decisions (especially specific outboard gear touches, such as the addition of Pearl Syncussion at certain points) would have been slightly to significantly different if this project was released a decade ago.

SP: The Syncussion definitely came in handy. There was a lot of editing, parallel processing, filtering, thickening, dubbing, and rinsing of the raw mixes to get them to a place where we were both happy.

What does Glissandro 70 allow you to express that your solo projects (Off World, Dun-Dun Band) don’t?

CD: It’s funny, because while this process for me is vastly different from what goes into making music with Dun-Dun Band (although Sandro’s a key part of the end of the process with those tunes, as co-producer, mixer and occasional masterer), my three collaborations with Sandro on Off World 2 were from the same period as most of what’s on Bones, and conversely a small handful of these ‘new’ tracks (I’m especially looking at you, “Pad Tide”) could have just as easily fit in on that album instead.

SP: I get to just sit back and respond to whatever Craig brings. Nothing that we do ever starts with me. He brings the kernels, I melt the butter, together we make it popcorn.

Did the isolation of 2020-2022 change your perspective on these “lost” collaborations?

CD: I’ll hand it off to head archaeologist Indiana Perri to take this one, since he’s the one who first shook the dirt off of ’em. (As much as the isolation of COVID lockdown did contribute to a change of perspective, it was also the time that that period afforded us all which of course led to lots of archival unearthing and completion of abandoned work for creative people in general.)

SP: As Craig says it allowed extra time to rediscover, listen, reflect, and reconsider. Maybe the idea of ‘lost for good’ had a more tragic ring to it at the time.

Are there still “bones” left on those hard drives, or is the vault now empty?

CD: Stay tuned! We might self-release an EP’s worth of more from the catacombs, so keep your sifting screens at the ready. (Veddy scary.)

Are you currently writing new material together, or are you focused on the live tour?

CD: No new material and no tour per se, but we do have a local release show booked here in Toronto in early June.

Photos courtesy of Glissandro 70

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others