Photo of Robbie Lee by Anna Webber, photo of Lea Bertucci by Daniel Melfi
After enchanting us with the celestial ‘Glitter and Gleam’, Robbie Lee & Lea Bertucci have shared the staggering ‘Division Music’, the second single from their upcoming collaborative album Winds Bells Falls. On the new track, Lee plays a gemshorn, a medieval wind instrument, similar to a small ocarina, traditionally made from the horn of a cow or other animals. He comments:
“Division Music quickly turns into a buzzing swarm, but instead of becoming claustrophobic, it’s lightened up by the little gemshorn. It might have been a medieval shepherd’s instrument, but here it’s inherently funny sounding. Multiplied by the tape machine, it makes a huge racket for something so small. This is serious music, but we can smile while playing it. To me this track is like an adventure dream, and the gemshorn is some little animal guide, safely getting you through it.”
Listen to ‘Division Music’ below and grab the album when it’s out on February 18th through Telegraph Harp.
There’s a new album on the way from Northern Irish composer and producer Hannah Peel, following last year’s Mercury Prize nominated Fir Wave. Entitled The Unfolding, the album is a collaboration with Bristol’s Paraorchestra and as the press release explains, it “explores Paraorchestra’s progressive idea of what an orchestra should be, mixing analogue, digital and assistive instruments with a unique ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians to make magic happen.” Speaking about the collaboration, Paraorchestra’s Artistic Director Charles Hazlewood comments:
“It’s been an amazing journey, collaborating on this album with Hannah. The opportunity to bring together Hannah’s amazing skills as a composer with the extraordinary talents of our Paraorchestra’s musicians, and allow it to evolve gradually and naturally as we navigated the restrictions of the pandemic, means that we have created something incredibly new and organic.”
Peel also has this to say about the album:
“The Unfolding is almost a life form in itself, taken from the muddy cells of the earth and taking flight into the air then returning to the elements. It’s like a character in itself. It’s a new way of seeing.”
The Unfolding arrives on April 1st through Real World Records and ahead of it, Hannah Peel & Paraorchestra have shared the title track and an accompanying animated video created by Stefan Goodchild (Triple Geek). Speaking about the meaning of the song and video, Peel comments:
“The Unfolding is a yearning, a reaching for love, to be part of something. One of the great aspects of music is that when you can’t find the language to communicate a feeling – a deep feeling, one that not only echoes the ghosts of your past, but also dreams and futures – music allows you to tell a story, and let that story be spoken and told by others.
From collaborating with the Paraorchestra, to the artwork with Jonathan Barnbook which in turn inspired this visual art by the director Stefan Goodchild, the shapes and forms of the original music have taken on new identities. There’s a sense of deep rooted humanity – that our time here on earth is short and we will never fully hear the rocks sing, as they shift over millennia.”
Ingenious, thought-provoking and unpredictable spoken word artist, bandleader, composer, saxophonist and activist Gus Fairbairn, aka Alabaster DePlume, got us under his spell a while back. So we’re a little bit more than excited to know he’s following his divine To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1, which was one of our Album Picks of 2020, with a double album called GOLD. An artist who thrives on collaborations and is known for mixing and connecting people, DePlume surrounded himself with the most talented musicians to bring the music of GOLD to life, including Rozi Plain, Conrad Singh, Sarathy Korwar, Tom Skinner, Tom Herbert, Danalogue and Matthew Bourne, amongst many others. Recorded at London’s Total Refreshment Centre, GOLD catapults us to a profoundly beautiful, earnest and gentle universe, brimming with positive energy.
We’ll have to wait until April 1st for the album to be out through International Anthem, Lost Map and Total Refreshment Centre but DePlume has already shared a magnificent two-song single, ‘Don’t Forget You’re Precious’ and ‘The Sound of My Feet on this Earth is a Song To Your Spirit.’ ‘Don’t Forget You’re Precious’ comes with an accompanying video directed by Jordan Copeland. Here’s both songs.
Winds Bells Falls is the new collaborative album from two utterly brilliant musicans with an eagerness to develop and explore new avenues of work, Robbie Lee and Lea Bertucci. Both based out of New York, Lee is an improviser and sound creator known for performing on a plethora of unconventional instruments, and Bertucci is an interdisciplinary artist, composer and improviser whose work spans through installation, sound, and video.
A match made in heaven, Lee and Bertucci recorded their first session in 2019 during her artist residency at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works and continued recording at his studio. As the press release explains, on the album Lee “plays medieval and baroque woodwinds, celeste (bell keyboard), and tubular chimes, while Bertucci live-manipulates and mangles his playing, hands inside a reel-to-reel tape machine, transforming and regurgitating in real time.”
Winds Bells Falls will see the light of day on February 18th through Telegraph Harp and they have already unveiled the celestial opening track, ‘Glitter and Gleam’. Speaking about the track, Lee comments:
“What I love about Glitter and Gleam is this combination of the most magical sparkly dreamfolk palette that gets utterly destroyed by how Lea uses the tape machines. Because the celeste has no control over the sound after the note is played, the feeling of dialogue is really clear in this one — you can hear what Lea is doing to the notes I play, and then hear how I’m responding back. It makes an infinite feedback loop of listening and reacting. Even though the vibe is very mellow, the energy is quietly all charged up.”
Listen to ‘Glitter and Gleam’ below and be enchanted like we were.
Following A Record of…, the collaborative album with percussion ensemble So Percussion, New York based duo Buke and Gase have a new collaborative release on the way. This time the incredible and inventive duo of Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez teamed up Newark, NJ based rapper Rahrah Gabor for a self-titled EP. “I feel like the main theme is found in how the project is structured and composed.”, Gabor explained. “Experimentation and collaboration are key in the construction of this project. Buke & Gase and I have had to embrace one another’s writing and performing styles and trust they would work well together.”
The EP arrives on February 11th via Brassland and they have recently unveiled the exciting and infectious second single ‘Pass Impasse’. Speaking about the single, Arone commented:
“This is an improv which we remixed to entice Rahrah Gabor with lyrics encouraging the listener to “bring new in,” because “life is brief, fill it up to the edge and keep on the move on.” I’m always asking myself if my cup is half full or half empty, and when I’m closer to empty I remind myself to take a deeper look at what I’m theoretically drinking, maybe add an ingredient or two, or just enjoy the simplicity of the life beverage.”
‘Pass Impasse’ comes with an accompanying video. Watch it below.
Belgian instrumental duo Glass Museum have announced the release of Reflet, the follow-up to their phenomenal 2020 album Reykjavik. With an ability to daringly and seamlessly merge classical music with other genres like jazz, breakbeat, minimal techno and deep house, on the upcoming record, keyboardist Antoine Flipo and drummer Martin Grégoire further cement their duality as a foundational element. Reflet, describes the press release, “is an odyssey running through troubled times, an ode to night time, to life, dreams and to all rhythms that convey emotions beyond words.”
The album will be released on April 29th through Sdban Ultra label and ahead of it, Glass Museum have shared the title track as the first single. It comes with a fittingly stunning video directed by Cyprien Delire and you can watch it below.
