Lawrence English & Lea Bertucci
Chthonic
Lawrence English & Lea Bertucci
Chthonic
Boomkat Product Review:
Experimental titans Lawrence English and Lea Bertucci go head-to-head on 'Chthonic', with English providing smudgy, isolationist found sounds and Bertucci responding with strings, lap steel and flute. Statuesque and mesmerizing, it's a record that drags you into its bluster and traps you in the eye of the storm until it's subsided.
English and Bertucci's first collaboration, 'Chthonic' was written remotely with the former stuck in Australia and the latter in New York after they met and decided to work together in 2019. It's a process that works for them, accurately capturing some of the anxiety of that precarious period. English is a consummate collector of sound, so it's fitting that he provides the sonic foundation of the record: gusty field recordings and tectonic rumbles are the album's initial aesthetic markers, but it's Bertucci's instrumental responses that provide the all-important counterpoint. On 'Amorphic Foothills', doomy, cinematic tumult is sliced through by Bertucci's breathy, sustained flute tones and scraped strings. She lets the pitch fluctuate suggestively, not imitating English's distinguished atmospheres but coercing them into fresh spaces.
Deceptively sculpted sharp winds introduce us to 'Dust Storm', blunted by saturation before a loud, slow rhythmic clap (possibly from a jack cable being unplugged) echoes through the landscape. Bertucci's squally woodwind sounds lend the composition its third dimension, with amplifier glitches and ground hum standing in as additional instruments, buzzing along in sync with the titular storm. And on 'A Fissure Exhales', Bertucci's viola and cello scrapes are fully placed in the foreground, English's textures providing a warm bed for the psychedelic dissonance before the strings form more recognizable, gloomy motifs. English fades in gentle, analog oscillations at this stage, stopping the composition from tipping into extreme darkness and preparing us for the celestial closer 'Strata'.
The album's most mystical offering, 'Strata' sounds like being lost in an alien jungle, with pitch-wonked flute sounds and syrupy synth drones melting into an oppressive, gnawing backdrop. Tense and apprehensive, it plays like an alternative soundtrack to Alex Garland's 'Annihilation'.
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Boomkat Product Review:
Experimental titans Lawrence English and Lea Bertucci go head-to-head on 'Chthonic', with English providing smudgy, isolationist found sounds and Bertucci responding with strings, lap steel and flute. Statuesque and mesmerizing, it's a record that drags you into its bluster and traps you in the eye of the storm until it's subsided.
English and Bertucci's first collaboration, 'Chthonic' was written remotely with the former stuck in Australia and the latter in New York after they met and decided to work together in 2019. It's a process that works for them, accurately capturing some of the anxiety of that precarious period. English is a consummate collector of sound, so it's fitting that he provides the sonic foundation of the record: gusty field recordings and tectonic rumbles are the album's initial aesthetic markers, but it's Bertucci's instrumental responses that provide the all-important counterpoint. On 'Amorphic Foothills', doomy, cinematic tumult is sliced through by Bertucci's breathy, sustained flute tones and scraped strings. She lets the pitch fluctuate suggestively, not imitating English's distinguished atmospheres but coercing them into fresh spaces.
Deceptively sculpted sharp winds introduce us to 'Dust Storm', blunted by saturation before a loud, slow rhythmic clap (possibly from a jack cable being unplugged) echoes through the landscape. Bertucci's squally woodwind sounds lend the composition its third dimension, with amplifier glitches and ground hum standing in as additional instruments, buzzing along in sync with the titular storm. And on 'A Fissure Exhales', Bertucci's viola and cello scrapes are fully placed in the foreground, English's textures providing a warm bed for the psychedelic dissonance before the strings form more recognizable, gloomy motifs. English fades in gentle, analog oscillations at this stage, stopping the composition from tipping into extreme darkness and preparing us for the celestial closer 'Strata'.
The album's most mystical offering, 'Strata' sounds like being lost in an alien jungle, with pitch-wonked flute sounds and syrupy synth drones melting into an oppressive, gnawing backdrop. Tense and apprehensive, it plays like an alternative soundtrack to Alex Garland's 'Annihilation'.
Boomkat Product Review:
Experimental titans Lawrence English and Lea Bertucci go head-to-head on 'Chthonic', with English providing smudgy, isolationist found sounds and Bertucci responding with strings, lap steel and flute. Statuesque and mesmerizing, it's a record that drags you into its bluster and traps you in the eye of the storm until it's subsided.
English and Bertucci's first collaboration, 'Chthonic' was written remotely with the former stuck in Australia and the latter in New York after they met and decided to work together in 2019. It's a process that works for them, accurately capturing some of the anxiety of that precarious period. English is a consummate collector of sound, so it's fitting that he provides the sonic foundation of the record: gusty field recordings and tectonic rumbles are the album's initial aesthetic markers, but it's Bertucci's instrumental responses that provide the all-important counterpoint. On 'Amorphic Foothills', doomy, cinematic tumult is sliced through by Bertucci's breathy, sustained flute tones and scraped strings. She lets the pitch fluctuate suggestively, not imitating English's distinguished atmospheres but coercing them into fresh spaces.
Deceptively sculpted sharp winds introduce us to 'Dust Storm', blunted by saturation before a loud, slow rhythmic clap (possibly from a jack cable being unplugged) echoes through the landscape. Bertucci's squally woodwind sounds lend the composition its third dimension, with amplifier glitches and ground hum standing in as additional instruments, buzzing along in sync with the titular storm. And on 'A Fissure Exhales', Bertucci's viola and cello scrapes are fully placed in the foreground, English's textures providing a warm bed for the psychedelic dissonance before the strings form more recognizable, gloomy motifs. English fades in gentle, analog oscillations at this stage, stopping the composition from tipping into extreme darkness and preparing us for the celestial closer 'Strata'.
The album's most mystical offering, 'Strata' sounds like being lost in an alien jungle, with pitch-wonked flute sounds and syrupy synth drones melting into an oppressive, gnawing backdrop. Tense and apprehensive, it plays like an alternative soundtrack to Alex Garland's 'Annihilation'.
Boomkat Product Review:
Experimental titans Lawrence English and Lea Bertucci go head-to-head on 'Chthonic', with English providing smudgy, isolationist found sounds and Bertucci responding with strings, lap steel and flute. Statuesque and mesmerizing, it's a record that drags you into its bluster and traps you in the eye of the storm until it's subsided.
English and Bertucci's first collaboration, 'Chthonic' was written remotely with the former stuck in Australia and the latter in New York after they met and decided to work together in 2019. It's a process that works for them, accurately capturing some of the anxiety of that precarious period. English is a consummate collector of sound, so it's fitting that he provides the sonic foundation of the record: gusty field recordings and tectonic rumbles are the album's initial aesthetic markers, but it's Bertucci's instrumental responses that provide the all-important counterpoint. On 'Amorphic Foothills', doomy, cinematic tumult is sliced through by Bertucci's breathy, sustained flute tones and scraped strings. She lets the pitch fluctuate suggestively, not imitating English's distinguished atmospheres but coercing them into fresh spaces.
Deceptively sculpted sharp winds introduce us to 'Dust Storm', blunted by saturation before a loud, slow rhythmic clap (possibly from a jack cable being unplugged) echoes through the landscape. Bertucci's squally woodwind sounds lend the composition its third dimension, with amplifier glitches and ground hum standing in as additional instruments, buzzing along in sync with the titular storm. And on 'A Fissure Exhales', Bertucci's viola and cello scrapes are fully placed in the foreground, English's textures providing a warm bed for the psychedelic dissonance before the strings form more recognizable, gloomy motifs. English fades in gentle, analog oscillations at this stage, stopping the composition from tipping into extreme darkness and preparing us for the celestial closer 'Strata'.
The album's most mystical offering, 'Strata' sounds like being lost in an alien jungle, with pitch-wonked flute sounds and syrupy synth drones melting into an oppressive, gnawing backdrop. Tense and apprehensive, it plays like an alternative soundtrack to Alex Garland's 'Annihilation'.
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