Double Bill : Lea Bertucci & John Also Bennett

Lea Bertucci

In October, Lea Bertucci will release a new album. The Oracle is a striking, vocally driven collection of music that unfolds over six tracks full of adventurous sounds, steeped in mysticism and imagination. It also marks her first solo work since the critically acclaimed A Visible Length of Light (Cibachrome Editions, 2021).

Her new music centers on the voice—a shift from the more instrumental character of her previous albums. Bertucci makes inventive use of a reel-to-reel machine to manipulate her voice live—a process that dissects language in order to create meaning that reaches beyond words. The texts on The Oracle emerge through what the artist herself calls a “stream of consciousness” method of improvisation.

Lea Bertucci is an experimental musician whose work revolves around electronic and spatial extensions of instrument and voice. In addition to her long-standing practice with woodwinds, she creates compositions that combine electronics and multichannel sound with orchestral and folkloric instruments. In doing so, she crafts tangible sonic worlds that summon the eternal and illuminate the everyday.

With a keen ear for site-specificity and acoustics, her practice has in recent years expanded into installations and non-linear presentations. Her discography spans more than a decade, including a number of full-length solo works and collaborations, most recently with Lawrence English, Olivia Block, and Ben Vida.

John Also Bennett

With Ston Elaióna, John Also Bennett presents his first album for Shelter Press since his solo debut Erg Herbe (2019). The American-born, Athens-based flutist, synthesist, and composer weaves a remarkably unique electro-acoustic journey for bass flute and Yamaha DX7ii, recorded largely in the early morning hours of his home city. Ston Elaióna—Greek for “in the olive grove”—is infused with the atmosphere of both the ancient and the contemporary world, shaped by a playful yet rigorous approach to sound.

Bennett first emerged in the mid-2000s noise scene of Columbus, Ohio, and around 2010 relocated to New York. Over the following decade, his practice steadily grew: as a solo artist (JAB), as a member of the trio Forma, in the duo CV & JAB with his partner Christina Vantzou, in Jon Gibson’s ensemble, and in numerous other collaborations. Since 2020, he has led a semi-nomadic life—shuttling between Brooklyn and Brussels, touring extensively, and spending long periods in Greece, where he settled last year.