I Know the Number of the Sand and the Measure of the Sea
Lea Bertucci + Olivia Block
I Know the Number of the Sand and the Measure of the Sea
Boomkat Product Review:
Two US experimental titans link up for the first time on this waved long-form collage, dilating vocal drones and concrète experiments in the name of the Oracle of Delphi.
Bertucci and Block first connected back in 2017, but it wasn't until 2022 that their collaboration was set in motion. Asked to perform an improvised set at New York City's Pioneer Works space, they began to figure out how their discrete approaches might match up, eventually playing the show and using the ideas to root their continued correspondence. With Block back home in Chicago, they shuttled sounds back and forth, Block using synth and tape and Bertucci processing her voice through a reel-to-reel deck and using a microcassette player to collage her field recordings. The result is almost predictably high grade - if you've heard Bertucci's legendary collaboration with Ben Vida 'Murmurations', or Block's brilliant GRM side 'Breach', 'I Know the Number...' fills in the space between the two.
The title is a reference to the Oracle of Delphi, the ancient high priestess who, according to some controversial speculations, would huff volcanic gases to inspire her famously ambiguous prophecies. The music follows this line of thought, imagining the psychedelic nature of the earth itself with contorted, half-melted vocalisations and subsonic rumbles on the opening side 'The Number of the Sand'. Hard panned, revolving white noise, pulled through reel-to-reel heads to generate stuttering, disassociated rhythms, punctuate disconcerting backmasked vocals that trap themselves in frayed sonic netting, and in time, the track has fractured into glassy shards of synthesized noise. And on the 20-minute flip, 'The Measure of the Sea', Block and Bertucci travel even deeper into the dirt, spacing out their susurrations so the silence absorbs all the mystery it can. After 10 minutes of ferric chanting and fractal meditation, Block's organ-like sine tones cart us into the final third, accompanied by eerie low-end resonances and ghostly trace whispers.
This one's a trip.
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Boomkat Product Review:
Two US experimental titans link up for the first time on this waved long-form collage, dilating vocal drones and concrète experiments in the name of the Oracle of Delphi.
Bertucci and Block first connected back in 2017, but it wasn't until 2022 that their collaboration was set in motion. Asked to perform an improvised set at New York City's Pioneer Works space, they began to figure out how their discrete approaches might match up, eventually playing the show and using the ideas to root their continued correspondence. With Block back home in Chicago, they shuttled sounds back and forth, Block using synth and tape and Bertucci processing her voice through a reel-to-reel deck and using a microcassette player to collage her field recordings. The result is almost predictably high grade - if you've heard Bertucci's legendary collaboration with Ben Vida 'Murmurations', or Block's brilliant GRM side 'Breach', 'I Know the Number...' fills in the space between the two.
The title is a reference to the Oracle of Delphi, the ancient high priestess who, according to some controversial speculations, would huff volcanic gases to inspire her famously ambiguous prophecies. The music follows this line of thought, imagining the psychedelic nature of the earth itself with contorted, half-melted vocalisations and subsonic rumbles on the opening side 'The Number of the Sand'. Hard panned, revolving white noise, pulled through reel-to-reel heads to generate stuttering, disassociated rhythms, punctuate disconcerting backmasked vocals that trap themselves in frayed sonic netting, and in time, the track has fractured into glassy shards of synthesized noise. And on the 20-minute flip, 'The Measure of the Sea', Block and Bertucci travel even deeper into the dirt, spacing out their susurrations so the silence absorbs all the mystery it can. After 10 minutes of ferric chanting and fractal meditation, Block's organ-like sine tones cart us into the final third, accompanied by eerie low-end resonances and ghostly trace whispers.
This one's a trip.
Boomkat Product Review:
Two US experimental titans link up for the first time on this waved long-form collage, dilating vocal drones and concrète experiments in the name of the Oracle of Delphi.
Bertucci and Block first connected back in 2017, but it wasn't until 2022 that their collaboration was set in motion. Asked to perform an improvised set at New York City's Pioneer Works space, they began to figure out how their discrete approaches might match up, eventually playing the show and using the ideas to root their continued correspondence. With Block back home in Chicago, they shuttled sounds back and forth, Block using synth and tape and Bertucci processing her voice through a reel-to-reel deck and using a microcassette player to collage her field recordings. The result is almost predictably high grade - if you've heard Bertucci's legendary collaboration with Ben Vida 'Murmurations', or Block's brilliant GRM side 'Breach', 'I Know the Number...' fills in the space between the two.
The title is a reference to the Oracle of Delphi, the ancient high priestess who, according to some controversial speculations, would huff volcanic gases to inspire her famously ambiguous prophecies. The music follows this line of thought, imagining the psychedelic nature of the earth itself with contorted, half-melted vocalisations and subsonic rumbles on the opening side 'The Number of the Sand'. Hard panned, revolving white noise, pulled through reel-to-reel heads to generate stuttering, disassociated rhythms, punctuate disconcerting backmasked vocals that trap themselves in frayed sonic netting, and in time, the track has fractured into glassy shards of synthesized noise. And on the 20-minute flip, 'The Measure of the Sea', Block and Bertucci travel even deeper into the dirt, spacing out their susurrations so the silence absorbs all the mystery it can. After 10 minutes of ferric chanting and fractal meditation, Block's organ-like sine tones cart us into the final third, accompanied by eerie low-end resonances and ghostly trace whispers.
This one's a trip.
Boomkat Product Review:
Two US experimental titans link up for the first time on this waved long-form collage, dilating vocal drones and concrète experiments in the name of the Oracle of Delphi.
Bertucci and Block first connected back in 2017, but it wasn't until 2022 that their collaboration was set in motion. Asked to perform an improvised set at New York City's Pioneer Works space, they began to figure out how their discrete approaches might match up, eventually playing the show and using the ideas to root their continued correspondence. With Block back home in Chicago, they shuttled sounds back and forth, Block using synth and tape and Bertucci processing her voice through a reel-to-reel deck and using a microcassette player to collage her field recordings. The result is almost predictably high grade - if you've heard Bertucci's legendary collaboration with Ben Vida 'Murmurations', or Block's brilliant GRM side 'Breach', 'I Know the Number...' fills in the space between the two.
The title is a reference to the Oracle of Delphi, the ancient high priestess who, according to some controversial speculations, would huff volcanic gases to inspire her famously ambiguous prophecies. The music follows this line of thought, imagining the psychedelic nature of the earth itself with contorted, half-melted vocalisations and subsonic rumbles on the opening side 'The Number of the Sand'. Hard panned, revolving white noise, pulled through reel-to-reel heads to generate stuttering, disassociated rhythms, punctuate disconcerting backmasked vocals that trap themselves in frayed sonic netting, and in time, the track has fractured into glassy shards of synthesized noise. And on the 20-minute flip, 'The Measure of the Sea', Block and Bertucci travel even deeper into the dirt, spacing out their susurrations so the silence absorbs all the mystery it can. After 10 minutes of ferric chanting and fractal meditation, Block's organ-like sine tones cart us into the final third, accompanied by eerie low-end resonances and ghostly trace whispers.
This one's a trip.
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Boomkat Product Review:
Two US experimental titans link up for the first time on this waved long-form collage, dilating vocal drones and concrète experiments in the name of the Oracle of Delphi.
Bertucci and Block first connected back in 2017, but it wasn't until 2022 that their collaboration was set in motion. Asked to perform an improvised set at New York City's Pioneer Works space, they began to figure out how their discrete approaches might match up, eventually playing the show and using the ideas to root their continued correspondence. With Block back home in Chicago, they shuttled sounds back and forth, Block using synth and tape and Bertucci processing her voice through a reel-to-reel deck and using a microcassette player to collage her field recordings. The result is almost predictably high grade - if you've heard Bertucci's legendary collaboration with Ben Vida 'Murmurations', or Block's brilliant GRM side 'Breach', 'I Know the Number...' fills in the space between the two.
The title is a reference to the Oracle of Delphi, the ancient high priestess who, according to some controversial speculations, would huff volcanic gases to inspire her famously ambiguous prophecies. The music follows this line of thought, imagining the psychedelic nature of the earth itself with contorted, half-melted vocalisations and subsonic rumbles on the opening side 'The Number of the Sand'. Hard panned, revolving white noise, pulled through reel-to-reel heads to generate stuttering, disassociated rhythms, punctuate disconcerting backmasked vocals that trap themselves in frayed sonic netting, and in time, the track has fractured into glassy shards of synthesized noise. And on the 20-minute flip, 'The Measure of the Sea', Block and Bertucci travel even deeper into the dirt, spacing out their susurrations so the silence absorbs all the mystery it can. After 10 minutes of ferric chanting and fractal meditation, Block's organ-like sine tones cart us into the final third, accompanied by eerie low-end resonances and ghostly trace whispers.
This one's a trip.
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