The concept of solo artists joining forces for short- or long-term projects is nothing new, but the current level of interconnectedness seems to have intensified it. Another such project, this time under the title of Bow and Arrow, is created by longtime experimentalists Lea Bertucci and Michael Beharie, who are just releasing a self-titled Bow and Arrow debut.
Bertucci explains the idea behind the project as a possibility to create “devotional music for the age of alienation,” music that “sounds like the drugs kicking in.” Basically, anything that creates sounds that drift between daydreams, nightmares and hallucinations.
In that respect, it seems that this pairing has all the preconditions to achieve its goal – Bertucci’s music itself so far revolved around the spaces that can be created between human voice and electronics, while Beharie dabbled with sound system transmissions, free improvisation and ‘basic’ folk music.
What the duo created here isn’t just a simple piling up of the different ideas together. Instead, Bertucci and Beharie were able to strike a balance between two different concepts and approaches to music-making and create this dual set of musical experimentation that sounds like a unified whole in which even those listeners who are usually not so fond of experimental music can find both sense and purpose. Experimental (not so) easy listening, anybody?
