Perera Elsewhere, the mercurial Berlin-based, UK-raised electronic artist, producer, DJ, lyricist, composer, sound artist and trumpeter releases atmospheric her much anticipated 4th album ‘Just Wanna Live Some’ today, with atmospheric dub meets rap focus track ‘Dream Like That’ on LA label Friends Of Friends.
The new album ‘Just Wanna Live Some’ is a collection of 12 tracks that evolve Perera’s sound and experimental creativity. On the focus track, “If life is a map where’s the X and that?” Perera asks on ‘Dream Like That’ over a backdrop of cigarette lighter clicks and dubwise bass and horns, with pointed, poetic contemplations reflecting on addiction and the torment of capitalism.
The visualiser for ‘Dream Like That’ features the stunning graphic visuals of Perera from the album artwork, with an array of peacock feathers that is part of the earthy colour palette, shapes shifting and distorting as the montage fills the screen and shrinks again in sync with the lyrics and beats of the track.
Perera Elsewhere, aka Sasha Perera, with her maverick approach to beats, experimental pop, spoken word and tech-electro, has been acclaimed for pioneering the ‘Doom Folk’sound since she made her debut ten years ago. She has had a busy summer of releases, with the most recent release of single ‘Fountain’, a hauntingly beautiful trackfeaturing the vocals of Congolese-Angolan musician Batila and Senegalese singer Yaadikone, with Perera’s trumpet alongside Oren Gerlitz’s guitar.
Ahead of that was the double single ‘NGL’/ ‘Visions’ featuring Neven, which saw areturn to Perera’s brooding, philosophical and atmospheric best, taking lead vocals to deliver part spoken word and song, with an echoing, lo-fi electronic soundscape of seductive synths, beats and pops of trumpet. Perera kicked off the summer with the incendiary‘F*ck Le System’/’Time Will Tell’, both tracks feature rising Ivorian female rapper Andy S and received support from Gilles Peterson and Jamz Supernova on BBC Radio 6 Music.
Multi award-winning studio mastermind Perera Elsewhere has received numerous awards and media acclaim from Dazed, Pitchfork, Crack, Dazed, KCRW, Vogue, Clash and FADER for her use of technology to experiment with her voice, lyrics, beats, deep bass frequencies and sound design to explore the human experience. It was Perera Elsewhere’s music that first coined the term ‘Doom Folk’, seeing her release music from day one with LA label Friends of Friends, sharing three widely-acclaimed albums, debut ‘Everlast’ (2013), ‘All Of This’ (2017) and ‘Home’(2022), achieving 4 million+ streams across her catalogue.
Over a decade after her debut, Perera Elsewhere, expresses herself emphatically, with fiery missives, thoughtful deviations and philosophical abstractions. With ‘Just Wanna Live Some’ the album title is a statement of intent, packed with Perera’s influences and obsessions, with a DJ’s brain, from her time mastering the trumpet as a teenager, circling the club scene in London, fronting bass-pop band Jahcoozi and working as one of the first promoters to bring grime and dubstep to Berlin.
‘F*ck Le System’ is an urgent feast of electro-rap meets tech-dancehall, propelled by syncopated typewriter clicks and arpeggiated trumpet stabs played by Perera. Its message is of potent feminine strength, it is keyed-up activism with timely lyrics delivered by Andy S’s defiant bars ‘Long story short bro fuck le système’. ‘Time Will Tell’ is underscored by dark bass, glitchy beats and ethereal vocals over which Andy S lays down a sick flow, trash talking any pretenders in true hip hop tradition. ‘Visions’ features regular collaborator Neven, the creator of one of Native Instruments most innovative software Playbox, used by Brian Eno, Arca and more.Neven co-wrote and produced the track with Perera and the result is dark, seductive and slick alt pop, with liquid synths, hypnotic beats, distorted vocals and sparse, intricate arrangements. ‘NGL’, with its melancholic lyrics shares Perera’s strength and resilience, pensive and defiant, bringing her vibes to rise above negativity. Her long-time obsession with grime emerges on ‘Angelic One’, with kaleidoscopic vocals across square wave bass prangs, jittery kicks that judder around fanfare-like horns. The ‘Post Everything’ is haunting, searing white noise spiriting through Perera’s evocative brass meditations, while the title track ‘Just Wanna Live Some’ sounds like a variant Chicago footwork jam.
Perera Elsewhere said “Some deep bars on life ‘n dat in ‘Dream Like That’. I made this beat and recorded the first verse and the hook in my studio over a bass I programmed. Called up Oren Gerlitz to bring some bass guitar warmth and life to this production. Wonky, powdering chords are made with Playbox sounds that I tweaked. It’s a song that is sadder or darker in the verses but then opens up into this hopefulness in the chorus. Life is like that in itself.
This new music is influenced by the grimey off-kilter club music I’ve been dancing to or playing for years. Recording with my trumpet has been special for me. On the album there’s tracks which sound like they are a soundtrack for some epic blockbuster sci fi movie, and songs which make you wanna cry and then get up for a dance and fight a war on all injustice out there. Like for anyone on any day, there are moods and mood-swings!”
Perera’s autodidactic technique is highlighted by a long list of collaborations, most recently Aho Ssan, Maral, 3Phaz, KMRU and German icon Nina Hagen. Elsewhere, but always rooted. No matter where Perera has found herself musically – she is a true multi-hyphenate.
Perera Elsewhere – pereraelsewhere.com, Insta, TikTok, Spotify, YouTube
‘Just Wanna Live Some’ Tracklisting:
- Purity Sin
- Time Will Tell (ft. Andy S)
- Visions (ft. Neven)
- NGL
- Angelic One
- F*ck Le System (ft. Andy S)
- Wet T-shirt Competition
- Dream Like That
- Just Wanna Live Some
- Fountain (ft. Batila & Yaadikone)
- Post Everything
- One Day
Vents MagaZine Music and Entertainment Magazine
