Perila

 Answering a need for sincerity and intimacy in overwhelming times, Berlin’s Perila makes her striking solo debut on sferic with a blush-worthy suite of sonic erotica, ASMR and sensuous ambient environments. Born in St. Petersburg and based in Berlin, Alexandra Zakharenko aka Perila cut her teeth as in-house designer and programmer at the recently defunct Berlin Community Radio (BCR) before co-founding the Russian online station radio.syg.ma, which hosted one of her early productions on the Sygmature compilation in spring 2019. Perila is also founder of WET (Weird Erotic Tension), an online community exploring ideas of sonic sexuality in podcasts mixing spoken word, poetry, ASMR and field recordings. Irer Dent stems directly from two WET podcasts, revolving readings of an erotic novel and a collection of poems by Nat Marcus and Inger Wold Lund, each set to absorbingly hypnagogic backdrops, and both accompanied by quietly seductive, original instrumental works. In five parts the album traces a filigree line between reality and fantasy in a more literal way than the label’s previously all-instrumental releases. On Nat’s Poems the voice of Nat Marcus regales a poetic account of Berlin nightlife woven with classic house lyrics from Rosie Gaines and Mr. White over twelve minutes of tumescent subbass and phosphorescing pads. Where sensuality is implied on that piece, it’s quietly explicit in the LP’s other vocal piece Sweat, which revolves Inger Wold Lund recounting a dream about suppressed sexual desire in a hushed and unaffected manner amid a shimmering forcefield of spectral energy and meridian birdsong. Both pieces are complemented by extra subtle originals, including the barely-there, pink / purple hues and distant pants of Mouth Full of Tahini and the warm endorphin flush of Message From Another Table. Slipping very sweetly into sferic’s liminal ambient space alongside Space Afrika, Echium and Jake Muir, Irer Dent lends a distinct new shade of modern, adult, atmospheric emotion and feminine pressure to the exploratory, Manchester-based label.