Metamyther Illuminates: Lea Bertucci’s Sonic Shadows and Living Machines

Tape, Woodwinds, and the Alchemy of Sound

Lea Bertucci emerges from the Brooklyn haze, her artistry woven from the magnetic threads of tape machines and the breath of woodwinds. In Metamyther’s interview, we find Bertucci reflecting on her early days—house parties, brick-walled lofts, and the tactile ritual of threading tape. These machines are not relics but living conduits, carrying her fascination for analog imperfection into the present. The saxophone, her first instrument, remains a spectral presence, even as her palette expands.

Bertucci’s journey is not a straight line but a constellation of explorations—composing for other musicians, delving into spatial sound, and blurring the boundaries between acoustic and electronic. Her latest works, such as a piece for medieval flutes and eight-channel sound, reveal a restless curiosity. Each project is a new vessel, where ancient breath and magnetic tape entwine, summoning a sound world that feels both primordial and futuristic.

Inspiration: Space, Material, and the Grammar of Listening

For Bertucci, inspiration is not a fleeting spark but a slow accumulation—a gathering of sonic dust and spatial memory. She speaks of collecting sounds over years, letting them settle and ferment before finding their place in a larger narrative. The DAW, once resisted, becomes a necessary companion, not for its perfection but for its ability to weave disparate fragments into a living tapestry.

Her approach is deeply materialist: every object, from a manipulated bell to a field recording, is a character in her unfolding story. The grammar of her records is forged from these tactile encounters, each technique and texture chosen for its ability to evoke space and presence. Bertucci’s music is not about fetishizing gear but about finding the right vessel for each sonic ghost—whether that means five tape machines in a van or a DAW humming quietly in the background.

The Human Touch: Imperfection as Essence

In a world tilting toward algorithmic perfection, Bertucci champions the fragile beauty of imperfection. She draws a line between the flawless, quantized music of AI and the unpredictable resonance of live performance. For her, the human touch—be it a wavering note, a breath, or a tape machine’s idiosyncratic delay—is the heart of experimental sound.

This ethos extends to her live performances, where flexibility and site-specificity are essential. Each space, each moment, reshapes the music, ensuring no two performances are the same. Bertucci’s commitment to imperfection is not nostalgia but a radical act: an insistence that music must remain alive, mutable, and generous to the listener. The tactile manipulation of tape, the drift of modular oscillators, and the quirks of ancient instruments all serve to remind us that the most resonant sounds are those that carry the fingerprints of their makers.

"A live instrument or like a live manipulation has some human fragility in it."

© Screenshot/Quote: Metamyther (YouTube)

Ancient Instruments, Modern Machines: Projects at the Edge

"All the gestures that I designed for that library were really meant to show off the space."

© Screenshot/Quote: Metamyther (YouTube)

Bertucci’s recent projects are a dialogue between epochs—medieval flutes and custom-built tape machines, spectral plugins and field recordings. She describes her collaboration with Norbert Rodenkirchen, whose collection of archaic flutes becomes the source for a sprawling sample library and a live, eight-channel performance. Here, the flute is not just an instrument but a vessel for ancestral memory, its voice shaped by centuries of human breath.

Her work with digital replicas of tape machines, modular systems, and sample libraries (like Spitfire’s Acoustic Shadows and Slate and Ash’s Specters) reveals a fascination with the physicality of sound. Each tool is chosen for its ability to extend, fracture, or haunt the original signal. The reverberant spaces—bridges, concrete rooms—become collaborators, processing sound in ways no algorithm can predict. These projects are not mere technical exercises; they are sonic rituals, inviting the listener to drift inside the machinery of memory and possibility.

Process and Presence: The Depths of Experimental Creation

To witness Bertucci’s creative process is to enter a space where time dilates and attention deepens. She speaks of letting ideas reveal themselves, of discarding what does not serve the greater sonic narrative. The length of her pieces, often glacial by pop standards, is a deliberate invitation to linger, to acclimate to a different sense of musical time.

In the closing moments, Bertucci reflects on the value of human music in an age of algorithmic abundance. Her upcoming works—pieces for pipe organ, seed-embedded postcards, and a tour with medieval flutes—are testaments to a practice rooted in generosity and curiosity. For those who wish to truly understand the magnetic pull of her sound worlds, Metamyther’s interview is only the threshold; the real resonance blooms in the spaces between words and in the living breath of performance.