{"title":"Lea Bertucci","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"lea-bertucci","title":"Lea Bertucci - All That Is Solid Melts Into Air","description":"\u003cp\u003e‘All That Is Solid Melts Into Air’ is a collection of new compositions from New York City-based sound artist, performer, and composer Lea Bertucci. As a performer, Bertucci has worked primarily with amplified woodwind instruments, creating enigmatic electro-acoustic interventions of the bass clarinet and saxophone in conjunction with tape collage and electronics. Her latest release on NNA, however, explores her work as a composer, which investigates extended acoustic resonance on classical instruments and their potential to powerfully occupy physical space. The two sides of this cassette contain two different pieces that exist around a common concept – the live performance of extended technique on stringed instruments, and the otherworldly way that the resulting sound exists in the space in which it is created.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first piece, “The Cepheid Variations”, is a recent piece for viola, cello, and magnetic tape collage, premiered in January 2015 as the first performance of Bertucci’s 2015 ISSUE Project Room Residency. Born out of an interest in the timbral and acoustic possibilities of harmonics, these pieces combine extended techniques for cello (performed by Leila Bordreuil), viola (performed by Jeanann Dara), combined with live concrete sound generated from magnetic tape, performed by Bertucci herself. Drawing upon the natural acoustics of ISSUE’s 22 Boerum Place theater, “The Cepheid Variations” examines the movement of sound in space through the use of dissonance, wide dynamic fluctuations, and particular sonic textures. Beginning with a pensive, ghostly landscape, the viola and cello explore glassy, fragile frequencies to their most powerful capability. A variety of bowing techniques are utilized by the performers, from slow, meandering pulses to frenetic scraping. Each subtlety in the physical manipulation of the instrument reveals new variations to the overall tension of the piece. The introduction of tape collage expands and adds dimension, introducing new frequencies into the sound field that cleverly juxtaposes the live instrumentation with pre-recorded sonic material.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe second piece, “Double Bass Crossfade”, positions two double bassists (James Ilgenfritz and Sean Ali) at opposite corners of the Knockdown Center’s 50,000 square foot main room. The instruments are wirelessly amplified, allowing the performers to slowly move across the room over the course of 40 minutes, meeting in the center and then crossing to each other’s original starting positions. Using a custom installed 10-channel sound system, the sounds of the performer’s instruments are dynamically routed from speaker to speaker according to their physical position, creating in their wake a mutable, engulfing sound field. The piece begins with the hypnotic, gentle bowing of the bass in its upper registers, but gains intensity as the piece progresses, finding its most powerful moments with a loud, rumbling low end that showcases the incredible acoustic power of the double bass. Tremendous depth is achieved through the layering of contrasting harmonics from each player, as the two performers engage with each other in focused technique, listening intently and creating a symbiosis through sound. Condensed from the original 10-channels to the stereo field for the purposes of this release, duality is the emphasis of this piece – in the musicians, their physical positioning, and their location in the stereo field. But as they eventually reach the lower ends of the register, the sounds they produce blend and fuse together into one raucous, engulfing whole.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two pieces on this cassette demonstrate the incredible amount of dynamic diversity that can be achieved by the phenomenon of vibrating metallic strings. Resonance and frequency are thoroughly explored with thought, care, and dedication. These works reveal a fresh voice in new music, while also championing the pioneers of the 20th century avant-garde – recalling the tonal curiosity of Ligeti, the emotional power and sensitivity of Arvo Part, the strident minimalism of Tony Conrad, and the unflinching violence of George Crumb. Bertucci exhibits a keen and perceptive ear for nuanced acoustic sound, and a passion for focused musical investigation is made evident through her compositions. Stepping aside from the role of performer, ‘All That Is Solid Melts Into Air’ shows us a different side of Bertucci’s repertoire – that of the writer and composer. This album reinforces her talents not only as a player, but as an imaginative explorer of music’s more cerebral and metaphysical outer limits.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCassette comes packaged with digital download coupon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e“Bertucci’s compositions are stark, resonant, and certainly something to behold” – Ad Hoc\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Bertucci uses strings (and tape\/amplification) to mirror the vibrations of breath, making near-hypnotic rhythms that seem circular even as they are continuously changing” – Tiny Mix Tapes\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e“One gets the sense that Bertucci arrives at her work not with an idea to impose, but a question to develop.” – Pitchfork\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"NNA Tapes","offers":[{"title":"Cassette (With Digital Download)","offer_id":45567665307871,"sku":null,"price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital Download (WAV)","offer_id":45567665275103,"sku":null,"price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital Download (320 MP3)","offer_id":45567665340639,"sku":null,"price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0677\/9256\/8543\/files\/NNA097-HiRes.jpg?v=1714759732"},{"product_id":"lea-bertucci-metal-aether","title":"Lea Bertucci - Metal Aether","description":"\u003ciframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3523225868\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/artwork=none\/transparent=true\/\" seamless\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/leabertucci.bandcamp.com\/album\/metal-aether\"\u003e'Metal Aether' by Lea Bertucci\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe’re excited to welcome New York City-based composer and performer Lea Bertucci back to NNA for a brand new full-length LP, ‘Metal Aether.’ Lea’s early 2017 cassette release ‘All That Is Solid Melts Into Air’ focused on her role as a composer, with a hand-picked selection of talented musicians performing her minimal compositions. ‘Metal Aether’ instead showcases her role as a performer, revealing four pieces that represent approximately 3 years of ideas and gestures for alto saxophone and magnetic tape. Expanding on 2014’s ‘Light Silence, Dark Speech’ as well as 2015’s ‘Axis\/Atlas,’ ‘Metal Aether’ develops a language of extended technique for alto saxophone that is based on a spectral, psychoacoustic, and non-linguistic approach to the instrument.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMuch like the recordings of her previous NNA release, ‘Metal Aether’ continues to explore Lea’s acute interest in the nature of acoustics and the harmonic accumulation of sound, with it’s four pieces having been recorded in Le Havre, France in a former military base, and in New York City, at ISSUE Project Room. With her horn, Lea produces pulsing minimalist patterns, transcendent drones, and upper register squalls that envelop these spaces in waves of overtones, microtones, and psychoacoustic effects. Tracks like “Accumulations” explore evocative, ancient-sounding melodic figures, while tracks like “Sustain and Dissolve” relish in the microtonal relationships between overlapping sustained notes. Aside from the saxophone, Bertucci further interacts with physical space by fortifying these pieces with manipulated field recordings from diverse locations, ranging from Mayan pyramids to NYC subways. Other instruments such as prepared piano and vibraphone can be heard on this album, processed through tape to unite melody and texture together as one. Lea displays a firm grasp of the inherent possibilities of sound manipulation to maximize her music’s power through the recording process itself, mixing conflicting fidelities to achieve a deeper, more organic form of expression.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThroughout 2017, Lea fully dedicated her creative efforts toward exploring and informing her music through a variety of disciplines. In addition to recording ‘Metal Aether,’ she wrote and performed during multiple residencies, toured rigorously throughout North America and Europe, organized site-specific sonic events with the SITE:SOUND series, and published her first book “The Tonebook,” a collection of graphic scores by 17 avant-garde composers. Through these endeavors, Lea immerses herself in the essential principles of true musicianship: study, performance, curation, literature, and experimentation. It is with these tools that she connects herself with sound in all of it’s forms - live, recorded, situational, natural, and unnatural. All of these elements come together to inform the pieces found on this album, creating a sophisticated, multi-faceted, and highly personal body of work. ‘Metal Aether’ feels like the defining statement from an artist in elevated control of their form - a summary of concepts, ideas, and emotions given life from one’s mind and heart. Lea demonstrates the desirable ability to use her art to sincerely communicate in a language of one’s own personal invention, utilizing music and sound for their most meaningful and human purposes.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"NNA Tapes","offers":[{"title":"'Metal Aether'\/'Resonant Field' 2xLP","offer_id":45567666946271,"sku":"LP-NNA-108-1","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Limited Edition 12\" LP (With Digital Download)","offer_id":45567666880735,"sku":"LP-NNA-108","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD (With Digital Download)","offer_id":45567666913503,"sku":"CD-NNA-108","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital Download (WAV)","offer_id":46555104608479,"sku":null,"price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital Download (320 MP3)","offer_id":45567666979039,"sku":null,"price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0677\/9256\/8543\/files\/NNA108-digital-border.jpg?v=1714759871"},{"product_id":"lea-bertucci-resonant-field","title":"Lea Bertucci - Resonant Field","description":"\u003ciframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=2486236744\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/artwork=none\/transparent=true\/\" seamless\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/leabertucci.bandcamp.com\/album\/resonant-field\"\u003eResonant Field by Lea Bertucci\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HmGeZr-V-t8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"m_6964236455279577593gmail-m_-2530660497029116166gmail-im\"\u003eIt is with tremendous pleasure that we announce \u003cstrong\u003e‘Resonant Field’\u003c\/strong\u003e, the brand new full-length album from New York-based sound artist and composer \u003cstrong\u003eLea Bertucci\u003c\/strong\u003e. Following up her critically acclaimed 2018 NNA full-length \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/nnatapes.com\/available-releases\/lea-bertucci-metal-aether\"\u003e‘Metal Aether’\u003c\/a\u003e, Lea continues her devotion to the exploration of physical spaces by way of sound, channeled through her alto saxophone. Where her previous work investigated a variety of locations around the globe, ‘Resonant Field’ narrows her focus to one space in particular - the Marine A Grain Elevator at Silo City in Buffalo, New York. Using her horn, Lea awakens certain resonances within the space which have laid dormant and forgotten for decades. In this sense, ‘Resonant Field’ is the documentation of a human’s profoundly personal interaction with an inanimate space through the medium of sound.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe decommissioned structure at Silo City is a massive, cavernous space filled with large cast concrete cylinders, measuring approximately 18 feet wide and 130 feet tall. A grain silo that was once active, noisy, loud, and filled with kinetic energy now lays dormant as a silent, hulking concrete corpse, as is the case with many industrial sites across the United States. Through playing her saxophone inside this structure, Bertucci’s goal was to excite and activate the space by playing certain pitches and extended techniques. By engaging with the acoustics in this manner, particularly the 12 seconds of natural decay, Bertucci is able to reimagine the saxophone as a polyphonic instrument, creating unique effects of microtonality and complex rhythmic phenomena, facilitated by the distinct delay as the sound bounces from one end of the silo to the other. Her microtonal playing moves delicately through the octaves, creating an interactive, responsive dance up and down the frequency scale. These overlapping tones form an extreme density and fills the ears and head with an eternal buzz, while also revealing an array of fluttering psychoacoustic phenomenon to the listener. By using these raw recordings of saxophone as the foundation for more intricate studio compositions, ‘Resonant Field’ transcends mere documentation and evolves into a focused, comprehensive and total work at the hands of the artist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDue to the specific architectural and sonic conditions of the Marine A Grain Elevator, Lea has captured new, never-before-heard sounds that truly cannot be duplicated by any other means. Her playing is improvisatory and reactive to the space’s unique acoustics. By allowing imperfections to exist within the recordings, the compositions evoke a distinct rawness and vulnerability. Free of premeditation or calculation, there is an emotional surrender to the bestial, monumental atmosphere and presence of Silo City. This formation of an intimate connection with her surroundings is both scientific and spiritual, putting Lea in a duality of roles as both an archaeologist of sound and as a sonic medium. The fact that these recordings took place during the partial solar eclipse of 2017 further contributes to the ceremonial, ritual quality of the work, making ‘Resonant Field’ a profound, industrial meditation on beauty, emptiness, and the deep melancholy of forgotten spaces.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCredits:\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRecorded by Lea Bertucci in summer 2017 at Silo City, Buffalo, New York.\u003cbr\u003e\nAdditional material recorded by Lea Bertucci and Ethan Primason during winter 2019 at Pioneer Works.\u003cbr\u003e\nProduced and Mixed by Lea Bertucci.\u003cbr\u003e\nMastered by Paul Gold (Salt Mastering) \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e Early flute by Robbie Lee in track 1, and 5-string double bass by James Ilgenfritz tracks 2, 3, 4. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e Drum samples in track 3 played by Tigue. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e Thanks to: \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e Pioneer Works, Squeaky Wheel, Robbie Lee, James Ilgenfritz, Justin Frye, Ekrem Serdar, Swannie Jim, Queens Council on the Arts.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e","brand":"NNA Tapes","offers":[{"title":"Special Edition 12\" LP","offer_id":45567669371103,"sku":"LP-NNA-120","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"'Metal Aether'\/'Resonant Field' 2xLP","offer_id":45567669403871,"sku":"LP-NNA-147","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital Download (WAV)","offer_id":45567669436639,"sku":null,"price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital Download (320 MP3)","offer_id":45567669469407,"sku":null,"price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0677\/9256\/8543\/files\/Lea_Bertucci_Resonant_Field.jpg?v=1720877655"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.northern-spy.com\/collections\/lea-bertucci.oembed","provider":"Northern Spy Label Group","version":"1.0","type":"link"}