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After the passing of Lee “Scratch” Perry, a deluge of recordings appeared claiming to be the “last” or “final” project of the Jamaican icon. However, his last official album project took him to Berlin, Germany where he landed on the doorstop of electronic pioneers Mouse on Mars.

The first question was why Lee “Scratch” Perry was coming in the first place.

Reasons were vague then and remain so now. Rumours of a record label connection. A backstory about a friend who’d worked with Mouse on Mars on Tromatic Reflexxions, their 2007 collaboration with late postpunk luminary Mark E Smith under the name Von Südenfed. All the group knew was they had been chosen. 

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Mouse on Mars prepared as much as you can for the arrival of someone who had attained mythic status while still very much alive. Still, Lee “Scratch” Perry’s arrival at Mouse on Mars’s Paraverse Studio in Berlin, December 2019, was a surprise. Dates kept fluctuating. Schedules kept shifting. There was also that infamous unpredictability.

If he was coming, which one of his personae would arrive? The Upsetter, Pipecock Jackxon, The Super Ape? Maybe Inspector Gadget, or The Firmament Computer.

Perry wasted no time. He opened his traveling suitcase and brought out knickknacks, icons, images, stickers, talismans. With pens and markers, he wrote further slogans and ideas on walls and surfaces.

Perry also transformed the studio with sound. Chanting, singing and mumbling in rhythm, communicating in murmurs, coughs and sly glances. Doing rude and loving damage to words.

The musicians followed him, recording all the time. Jan St. Werner talks about the instinctual recording process: “We hardly spoke about what we were doing. We met and got going. He was laughing a lot and we laughed along. We also cooked and ate fish soup and papayas.”

Listen to 'Rockcurry'

Once upon a time, Mouse on Mars asked Lee “Scratch” Perry about space, Jamaican fish stew was in the air. Specifically, they asked of his familiarity with Spatial Audio and multi-channel sound diffusion. His response provides not only the title of this epic collage of genres, but the very method of its making. “Spatial,” he said, grinning, “No problem.”

And then just like that he was gone. Back to Switzerland where there were rumours of a second Black Ark Studio and then to join his and our sonic ancestors.

Spatial, No Problem. is the story of what Lee “Scratch” Perry left behind in Berlin in his encounter with Mouse on Mars. It’s a story of spaces mixing, and cultures morphing towards a different kind of future.

Words by Louis Chude-Sokei

Headphones on please.

You can pre-order the album here.