This latest release from NY-based saxophonist/composer Bertucci continues her bold expansion into improbable and adventurous new territory, as it is a commissioned collaboration with German flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen. The two artists first met back in 2019 after a performance by Rodenkirchen’s early music ensemble Sequentia and Bertucci was immediately fascinated by both Rodenkirchen’s collection of ancient flutes and all of the folklore and tuning/notation challenges inherent in recreating Medieval music. When Bertucci landed the opportunity to record at The ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe back in 2023, the stars were finally in perfect alignment for the two artists to collaborate on something special and unique that inventively blurs the lines between past and future. The resultant work is something of a shapeshifting beast that has morphed from an eight channel spatialized live performance to an infinite durational installation to a 34-minute stereo album. To my ears, there is probably nothing else on earth quite like it, but it falls in roughly the same avant-garde ballpark as Maryanne Amacher, Phill Niblock, and Catherine Christer Hennix.
The album borrows its title from a quote by a former Carthusian monk explaining why the monastery’s Chartreuse production was decreased (despite high demand) during the pandemic to allow the monks more time for their spiritual concerns. It is a perfect title, as one of Rodenkirchen’s flutes is a replica of a vulture bone flute that dates from as far back as 37,000 years ago and the duo’s Pythagorean tunings date back to Ancient Mesopotamia circa 600 BC and are based on the mathematics of the natural world. Much like the monks, Bertucci and Rodenkirchen see the current age of “scorched earth capitalism” as an ephemeral chapter in a story that spans millenia and predates America, Christianity, capitalism, electricity, and Western turning systems. Then again, maybe it won’t be ephemeral in the way that I hope, as Bertucci seems particularly fascinated with the more apocalyptically inspired strains of early music and notes that experiencing a total solar eclipse made her feel “connected to the experience of my ancestors from ages ago, of a primeval confusion, sense of humility and wonderment at the awesome power of the skies.” It is probably safe to say that this album is her valiant attempt to re-capture that singular feeling.
There are some notable nods to the contemporary age, however, as Bertucci’s “mood board” of inspirations includes Phill Niblock’s Four Full Flutes (1990) album and she also makes use of the psychoacoustic phenomenon known as Tartini tones intended to activate the “third ear.” The album’s other primary inspirations are Sequentia’s “Endzeitfragmente, Fragments for the End of Time” and an obscure music blog find recorded by the Albanian Kvall Ensemble entitled “Kompleks Me Kavalla.” How all of those threads come together is covered extensively in the booklet that accompanied the limited edition version of this album and it is quite an interesting read, but the most salient bits are that the album is a collage of “pre-recorded pitches and improvisational gestures from Norbert’s collection of archaic flutes, cut into samples and electronically diffused across an eight channel spatialized speaker array.” The magic lies in the “natural dissonances generated from layering pitches,” which produce the aforementioned psychotropic Tartini tones.
As cool as all that sounds, it admittedly took me a while to fully warm to this album even after managing to catch one of the duo’s live performances at Hudson, NY’s Basilica. My initial stumbling block is amusingly captured perfectly by one of Bertucci’s prompts to Rodenkirchen in which she urges him to evoke the viewpoint of an ancient Viking who has just ingested some psychedelic mushrooms and is “starting to feel the presence of the elves.” Tragically, I am very much not the target demographic for either Medieval flute improvisations or feeling the presence of elves, so I had a very hard time connecting with the first few minutes of the album, but I was fully immersed in duo’s shimmering, shapeshifting fantasia once all the buzzing drones and smeary overtones blossomed in earnest and I genuinely did feel like I was in an enchanted forest by the end of the album’s first half (even if I did not knowingly encounter any elves).
The album’s second half is where things truly catch fire, however, as slower, murkier tones and buzzing, gnarled dissonance marked my arrival into a sustained stretch of greatness that called to mind an absolutely killer jam session between Phill Niblock and the Greek god Pan. Those final ten minutes or so are quite a fucking payoff, as it sounds like a snake charmer has opened the gateway to a nightmare bird dimension and the air has come alive with spatially mobile and otherworldly bird calls. In fact, I even experienced literal chills, so I am calling this inspired detour a success. It is undeniably quite a challenging listen (especially when compared to Bertucci’s solo sax work), but she and Rodenkirchen were clearly straining for something transcendent here and my conclusion is that they ultimately reached it. And now, thanks to magic of scorched earth capitalism, eternity-minded deep listeners can experience a taste of that transcendence from the comfort of their very own living room.
