- Luca Mortellaro makes music to open our minds. It's his raison d'etre, without which he'd be "a dead man." His records are designed to unlock emotions, whether consciously or subconsciously, and trigger new ways of responding to sound. It's all part of a larger move towards personal revolution, something Mortellaro hopes to inspire in some small way. Both his Lucy project and his label Stroboscopic Artefacts are noted for their intellectualism, though the concepts rarely eclipse each record's craftsmanship and sonic merit. They're treated more as musing points, origins of meditation, and where the individual follows it to is down to them.
On the third Lucy album, Self Mythology, Mortellaro's personal spiritualism is paramount. For over a year he's been hosting monthly sound bath meditations at a yoga studio in Berlin, and his idea of healing sound is as palpable as the more apparent themes of folklore and mysticism. Tracks like "Dissonance Emancipation" and "Vibrations Of A Circular Membrane," featuring the improvised vocal drones of Jon Jacobs, conspire to sync body and mind like Mortellaro's sound bath sessions. Their new age ideas provide contrast to the old-world ethnomusicology at play elsewhere, such as on "A Millennia Old Adversary."
The Bansuri flute in "Samsara" spirits us away to North Asia, to some hallowed mountain top on a chilly early morn. The mood is serene but is soon soured by atonal chords that creep into frame and pollute the dreamscape. More midnight terrors occur in "She-Wolf Night Mourning," which suggests doom and misfortune under a lovely, star-studded sky, and "Canticle Of Creatures" finishes Self Mythology's trip with a vaguely familiar IDM-style electronica. To fully reap the record's benefits, empty your mind and let Mortellaro's transportive sound do its work.
Tracklist01. Baba Yaga's Hut
02. Dissonance Emancipation
03. Vibrations Of A Circular Membrane
04. A Selfless Act
05. Meetings With Remarkable Entities
06. A Millennia Old Adversary
07. She-Wolf Night Mourning
08. Samsara
09. Canticle Of Creatures