Hello, welcome to the first Lost and Sound of 2026.

Today we're going to talk electroacoustic spaces, leaving Spotify, gatekeeping in the experimental music world, and being an artist in Trump's nightmare of an America.

And I'm having this conversation with the experimental composer Lea Berttucci.

Hello, you're listening to Lost and Sound, the show that goes deep with artists shaping music and culture from the underground up.

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Okay, I'm speaking to you from an incredibly sunny back garden in Carlton in Melbourne.

It is January the 5th, 2026.

I hope you're having a really wonderful one.

This is Lost in Sound.

And each week on the show I have conversations with artists who work outside the box about music, creativity, and about how they're navigating life through their art.

So whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's great to have you along.

So yeah, this is the first episode of 2026.

I hope you're having a great new year.

I hope you had a great New Year's Eve.

Um I'm speaking to you still speaking to you from Melbourne, Australia, where me and my partner saw New Year in.

I've had my first summertime New Year ever, which is unusual for me because I'm such a pasty northern European.

To be out in a vest top in January, in the end of the year, and like now what is uh January the 5th when I'm speaking to you is kind of quite weird.

Um I don't mean a gloat either, I know right now this week it's super cold in Europe right now, and I've seen from some friends' Instagrams that there's huge amounts of snow in Berlin.

I hope if you're in snowy regions, I hope you're keeping warm.

Um it's gonna be 40 degrees here, and I know that might sound like a gloat, but I don't always do so well in the hot weather.

So I'll be back in Berlin next week anyway.

But yeah, we saw New Year in in a house party, and it was amazing.

And the first tune um that was played after midnight was Born Slippy Underworld.

It's it's great when you hear like an old tune like that, and it's something that sometimes can just be like just too familiar with, like too, it sort of lost all of its kind of cachet and and like almost like it's fun because it's so overplayed, but you hear it in the right place at the right context, and it just it just means something.

Like ever I feel like everyone around us really, really sort of vibed off that.

What was the first tune that you heard this year?

Uh let me know.

I'll be interested to sort of hear that.

I'll read out some of like the most interesting answers.

I'm sure some of you have got more interesting ones than me with Born Slippy, but yeah, it just worked.

It just sounded really, really, really good.

Anyway, Lea Bertucci is on the show today, the New York-based composer and performer who, for over a decade and over a discography of eight full-length solo albums and a number of collaborative projects, has been etching out a practice that takes in voice, woodwinds, electronics, real-to-reel tape manipulation, and particularly spatial sound.

And I love the way Lea does this.

So just want to sort of be a bit clear.

What do we mean by spatial sound in the context that we talk about it today?

Because I think it's a term that gets used in different ways for different contexts, and they can be quite different.

So, in the context of today, I'm defining it as sound that is in some way site responsive, where architecture and the environment that the sound is recorded in become part of the composition itself.

Often this is done through like resonance and echoes, reverbs, the the the sort of the things that sound that space naturally has in it.

So if you think of things like churches and the way sound echoes in churches or like in tunnels, and how like if you project your voice into that, like something comes back.

And this is something I've been interested in for some time.

For Lea Bertucci, this means that in works like Resonant Field, she recorded in an abandoned grain elevator and in acoustic shadows recorded inside a hollow bridge.

And we had this conversation back in October because at the time she had just released her latest solo album, The Oracle, and part of the Oracle was recorded in a post-rainstorm cave in upstate New York.

So you might be thinking, I don't know, why go to the effort to record somewhere like a cave when there are plug-ins that just do that sort of thing immediately?

And yeah, you might be right, but I think, well, I'm gonna give you an example.

Last week I was in the Victoria Outback in a really, really remote part of the uh the state of Victoria in Australia, and experienced spatial sound myself.

Now, there's these decommissioned giant like grain silos across Australia that have been turned into art installations.

Um back in the day, these would have been large industrial grain silos.

So you're talking like really high, and now they have huge murals up the side uh where different artists have been commissioned to do different murals on different silos, and inside the silo, there's also like art, there's also sort of site-specific works.

So, in the middle of this really, really, really remote little town, like tiny little town in the outback, um, there was one of these silos, it had beautiful art along the side, and we climbed to the top of it.

Well, actually, we took a lift, but we're in the top, and then you go inside the silo, and then I sort of projected my voice into it, and it just echoes.

There's just this beautiful trail of echo.

And, you know, doing that, like you realise that the sound that the echo becomes part of the music that you're making, not just something you're adding on at the end, because you're sort of collaborating with it, you're hearing this echo in real time inform what you're doing yourself.

In my case, it was how I was using my voice, which was just playing around, really.

Um, and so I think that's how part of the reason, well, just like a way that I feel that making music in these spaces becomes a compositional tool.

It's not like an add-on or a gimmick, it becomes something that like really gives something like I guess you could even read transcendental into it.

And I know that if you go back in time, acoustic spaces, like particularly church spaces, were used in a way that like singing in them would kind of create this state of being closer to God or whatever you want to say.

But anyway, Leah uses this really, really, really well.

And on the album The Oracle, which is a deep, deep, deep listen, you can hear how this is used, and it'd be interesting to know like how it would be if it wasn't used like that.

I think it really does add something.

And okay, so also on the album, one of the themes that uh she was concerned with about the time was about like this kind of contemporary political unease that isn't really like an undercurrent anymore, it's just such an overt thing, and that's something that the conversation really kind of lands on, really, but begins on and and kind of gravitates back to quite often.

So this is a very political conversation.

It's so we had this conversation in October, and this is before Mam Danny got elected in.

And the context of that will become relevant as you listen.

Um, I'm not gonna say what happens, but what I do want to say is that I think Lea Bertucci is an incredibly passionate and committed artist, an artist with progressive beliefs in a time and context where that feels like under threat.

Um, so yeah, we had a really good chat.

We did have the conversation on October the 10th, and the reason I'm putting it now is if you're a regular listener to the show, you'll know I took a few months out to make a BBC radio free documentary with my partner Rosalie Delaney.

And this documentary is called Wolf Beerman, the German Bob Dylan, exiled by the GDR.

If you're in the UK, you can listen to it on the BBC Sounds app.

And if you're outside of the UK, yeah, there are some issues about that, but we're trying to resolve that at the moment.

Um if you like Lost in Sound and you haven't already, please do give it a subscribe.

Give the show a rating and a review on the platform of your choice.

It really, really, really does help.

And yeah, so we had this chat on October the 10th, 2025.

And this is what happened when I met Lea Bertucci.

Hi, Leah, how are you doing?

Hey, good, how are you?

I'm really good, thank you.

I'm really good.

Are you are you in New York?

Yeah, I'm in uh upstate New York in the Hudson Valley, which is about like two hours north of New York City.

Right.

Okay.

And is it quite important for you to be somewhere just a little bit out of the main throng of the city?

Because I know that you're also very connected to like the New York, uh, New York underground scene.

Is it important to have that little bit of distance?

Yeah, well, you know, I lived in New York for like 15 years.

And, you know, it's changed so much since I moved there.

And, you know, emerging out of the pandemic, like honestly, I got priced out.

Right.

Okay.

It's too expensive to live there unless you're independently wealthy or have a full-time job, or you know, have some kind of insane rent control situation.

But you know, New York is just, it's gotten too expensive.

And um I feel, I mean, there's still stuff going on there, obviously, but um, the scene is not what it used to be, I think.

Yeah.

Um, I mean, it's always transforming.

So, you know, new things come in as old things go away.

But I live in an area that has a lot of really rich artistic activities right now.

The Hudson Valley has, you know, there's I'm going to see a show tonight.

I went to a show last night.

Um, there's a lot of good stuff up here.

And I think also it just becomes like a quality of life issue.

Like I have a studio here.

Uh, I live in like a freestanding house.

Um, I have a garden.

It's these kind of things that, you know, yeah, I mean, that also helps.

I can imagine, yeah.

I think um I know that New York's quite extreme in terms of uh rents and and the escalation and gentrification.

Where I'm in in Berlin, we're sort of seeing our own version of that.

And where um I I lived before in London, that's quite extreme too.

And and yeah, London is like impossible.

Yeah, you you leave the house and you've spent 30 pounds before you you before you can even go.

Where did that go?

I don't I don't know, you know.

Um, do you feel like there's been a big migration of other artists as well out out of um like this almost kind of traditional creative districts of central New York?

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, when I graduated from undergrad, you know, when I was 22 years old, everybody just moved to New York City, pretty much.

I mean, there were people who like went to other smaller cities, but um, yeah, it's much more decentralized now.

I see people moving to smaller cities, Philadelphia, Chicago.

I mean, Chicago's a big city.

Chicago is still relatively affordable.

But yeah, I see less of like concerted motion towards like New York City.

Yeah, which is kind of, I mean, again, like you mentioned, like things are always changing, you know, that's just part of life.

But it's also quite sad because I think there's a real um, I think there's a real importance in having places that can become a breeding ground for people to, you know, live in a shitty apartment, pay next to no rent, you know, or an affordable amount of rent, and live a kind of a squalid lifestyle for a while to make stuff really.

I mean, that was the 20th century way of people being able to pursue their artistic dreams.

And I I don't even feel like I even was able to experience that really, because I got to New York City in 2007 and you know, I had to have a full-time job to when I first started out living there.

So, you know, it's it's um, I don't know.

I think people are trying to rethink the way that we are able to make all of this work.

Yeah, I mean, I guess that's the one thing about creativity is that it's always finding a way.

Like the nature of creativity in itself is about being creative with stuff and then um having to be creative with how, you know, what what decisions we've make with like where we live and how we live and and and what is part of that, really, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, one of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately is, you know, with all of the political instability and the you know, fascist takeover of the United States, that I I really believe that the artists who are going to like make it, who are gonna continue to make work and do the thing are the ones who are not dependent on institutional funding in the first place.

You know?

So artists who are, you know, won't get out of bed for a certain amount of money, like honestly, they're not gonna make stuff.

Um, I think that the people who have like the DIY spirit are the ones who are gonna be able to continue.

Yeah, I that's a really good point, actually.

And how does that feel?

On a I mean, I'm I I hate to be one of these Europeans that asks an American, how does it feel right now?

But do you do you feel it now, the the the the the stuff going on?

Does it does it impact you or friends of yours on a daily basis?

Or is it is there like an it does?

Yeah, I mean there's there's like material things like I have to figure out how to get health care and that's about to like get more expensive.

There's like daily cost of living stuff, like my electric bill is really high all of a sudden.

So there's like economic stuff, there's also like psychic stuff that like emotional turmoil where you know I listen to the news or like I read the New York Times or whatever, and it's just everything is bad.

Everything ever every there is no good news, you know.

We don't have any kind of unified opposition.

Um, and the regime is just doing whatever they please, and there's absolutely no regard for the law.

People are getting kidnapped.

You know, ICE was around the corner from my house a few weeks ago, like they're kidnapping people, and we don't have free speech anymore.

So, and and also, you know, academia is getting a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of crazy stuff happening within academia, which like directly affects artists, because a lot of artists depend on academic institutions, uh, either as professors or you know, PhD students.

So it's really um, yeah, it's not good.

Um, I think that we're all trying to figure out how to see clearly to figure out what is real and what is not real because the propaganda is just so intense, and it really is like living in a place where half of the population lives in a totally different reality than you.

Yeah, and that's really scary.

Hang on one second, there's somebody in my house.

No worries, take your time, awkward.

It's you sorry, no worries at all.

I thought my partner had gone to work, but I guess not.

No, I mean, I'm I'm actually very surprised my cat is currently not, he loves to jump up and like get in front of the screen and he hasn't done it yet.

So let's see if he does a little guest.

He was just to get a little cameo in.

Um, yeah, I mean, so I mean, I think uh with the album The Oracle, um, at least in a press release, it does mention that it's these are press release words, so I know that they can sometimes be like an elaboration or whatever, but um, but it's uh an alchemy of uh contemporary political anxieties.

What does that mean to you?

What does that mean to you in terms of the oracle and your work at the moment?

How does these the political anxieties manifest in in what you're doing with it?

Yeah, I mean, so you know, the purpose of an oracle historically is always to seek divination, to figure out what is going on and what will be happening.

So it's a it's an exercise in seeing.

And as I was sort of alluding to before, this notion of seeing things clearly is something that is so difficult right now.

And so I think a lot of the paranoia and just darkness is something that is kind of like manifest throughout the music.

Um that said, there's it's not like a terribly like dreary album, you know.

I I have this thing about me where I feel like, you know, whenever I'm given an obstacle, it makes me want to like push against it harder.

You know, which you know is hard sometimes to do that, but um, I think like not capitulating right now is super important.

Yeah, like people ask me, Oh, are you gonna like leave the US and you know why should they?

They get this.

Like it's so beautiful.

I live in such a beautiful place.

Um, I don't want them to have it.

So, yeah.

So I would say that because it's like a very voice uh-based work, the way that I approach the lyrics is that um I used what I call like a stream of unconsciousness technique where I would kind of like tap into the inner monologue and I would influence my inner monologue by meditating on like recent dreams that I had.

Um I would read certain texts.

I I read a lot of like classical Greek um mythology uh surrounding oracles.

I also read, you know, I read a lot of the news.

Um so things like that would kind of like seep in.

Also, the the way that I approach words and language in the record is that, you know, some fragments of words, some phrases here and there pop out, but a lot of it is very um distorted.

And so it's kind of like contemplating the way that the breakdown in communication has happened here.

Like we can't communicate with each other, we can't understand each other.

Uh, there is no discourse, right?

So that's also like part of the political anxiety that is like pervasive in the record.

There's such an interesting way of doing it.

And was how much of this do you feel you went into without knowing what you were gonna do in terms of the themes?

How you know, because I know sometimes some artists will go, like they'll finish something and they'll go, Oh, yeah, that's what it's about, because that's what I was thinking of at the time.

It took me the work to be able to do that.

Um, and I know other artists, it's a little bit more like there are definite parameters in going into something.

What was that like for you?

Um, for this, I would say that it was like an intuitive process.

The last track, uh, which is called In This Time, I added uh at kind of the last minute.

And that was something where it was a real intentional, like, I want to end this album with a rather ominous tone.

Yeah.

Um so I would say there was like an intentionality in in that track.

But in general, you know, it took me about three years of recording bits and pieces of this record and figuring out how it all fit together.

So, you know, I think it was more of an intuitive process.

And then at the end, it's like, oh, like listening back to it and making certain decisions.

I I sort of realized what this is.

Right.

And do you feel like it kind of became a bit of an oracle for yourself in that process of being able to look back at the end and intuitively?

Yeah, I mean, it's it's a process of seeing, it's a process of like figuring out how to have um vision.

Yeah.

And I think I think the other was we're still on a political note, and we might well go more into politics throughout.

I don't know, but um, I did notice that it's not going to be available on Spotify.

And um, well done.

That's amazing.

Good stuff.

Was this something?

Because I I think in particular in the in the last month, two months, there's been a real concerted effort for uh not a huge amount of artists, but a very visible amount of artists to leave Spotify for for various reasons that kind of all tie together.

And I was wondering, was it is this part, was your reasons for not posting it on Spotify uh part of that, or do you have like your own separate reasons as well, or instead of um it's both.

I would say that um I've always done pretty limited streaming on Spotify.

Um the way I had done it before, with all of my own self-released work, is that I would post like one or two tracks from an album and not the entire album.

Um I think that I read that book that came out, um, Mood Machine.

Yes, Liz Perry.

Yeah, Pelle.

Yeah.

Pelleza, yeah.

Yeah.

And it it was so well written and well investigated.

And um, I don't know, she just did such a great job really fleshing out the truth about that platform, which is that it was not founded by people who are even interested in music.

It was, you know, founded by a bunch of advertising tech bros.

And um yeah, it's it's not a good platform.

Um, I think it's it has uh changed people's tastes.

I think it's made people much more passive listeners.

And the extent to which it's like ripping off artists is like really, really deep.

And I think that that book is is a really big service to like the truth of that platform.

Um, so I've never really been a Spotify fan.

Um, the record is is I I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing here.

I'm I'm kind of experimenting.

Yeah.

Um, and this is one of the nice things about releasing your own work is that you can do experiments that might or might not work.

Um, the record can only be listened to in full if you buy it from my bandcam or on Apple Music, but you still have to actually buy it.

And the streaming in general is going to be pretty limited.

There will be two tracks available for streaming on other platforms than Spotify, but really like you have to buy it.

And I don't know if that's going to work or not, but let's see what happens.

I mean, that's a great approach to take.

I think um viewing something as an experiment rather than being like a defining moment, you know, like this has got to be the defining statement about what I do, you know, and I want it to maximize in every single way, you know, which I don't think fits the identity of many of the artists I speak with anyway.

Oh, sure.

I feel, yeah, definitely.

Well, I mean, I think like experimenting on something like that is a really good way of uh yeah, finding for yourself, but also, you know, it does make a statement as well, you know, in a time where, as you said earlier on, I'm paraphrasing you, but it's not really a time to stay silent on issues.

It's not really a time to uh, you know, we if if people don't act now, we're not gonna have the opportunity to in a little while's time.

Yeah, and also I don't want to be a person who looks back on this period of time and said and said, like, oh man, I should have done this, or I should have, you know, spoken out, or I should have, you know, it's it's not a time to be complacent.

I mean, they want us to be complacent, right?

That's what they want is us to be disengaged and fearful.

So any anything that I can do that's like against their agenda is like what I want to do.

And I think I think Spotify fits with this whole idea of disengagement as well, because the whole nature of treating music as this kind of free endless reservoir that gets quieter and quieter and um becomes the background.

Totally.

And you you can kind of sort of draw parallels with what's happening in streaming with films, this whole idea of the second screen thing, and just yeah, like you say, this idea that none of these people are like film people or music people, they're tech people.

Yeah, we've given over the keys to people whose bottom line is uh LinkedIn.

Yeah, I mean, I I'm really interested in the notion of like deplatforming, you know, um, which is difficult because of course, like Bandcamp is still a platform that is like becoming more inshidified by the day.

So, you know, it's it's hard to completely escape platforms.

Um, you know, I still have to like post on Instagram, right?

I'm trying to like cultivate a bigger mailing list, you know, um, but just like thinking about ways to divest from these platforms which are like not good for us, um, that are exploitative and are just like, yeah, basically creating a dependence on them and then uh changing the terms of their engagement.

I I'm interested in in ways of deplatforming.

Yeah.

I'm not there yet, but I think it I mean it does take a lot.

Like I still have I still have this podcast on Spotify.

I and I I have got to the point of going, yeah, I should do that.

I'm at that sort of stage, you know, of going, yeah, I should do that, rather than actually doing it.

Um, and which is down to my own, I guess, like inertness, really.

And so maybe a conversation like this will help motivate me to do actually do something a little bit more about that.

Uh I mean, you know, your your choices are your own.

Yeah um if you feel like you if you feel like it won't hurt your audience, you know, and also like if you make a big stink about it, that probably helps.

Yeah, yeah.

If it just disappears one day, then people will be like, huh, I don't know.

Yeah, if you make a big stink about it, people will be like, you know what?

I'll pay, you know, five dollars a month to continue to listen to this.

Yeah, maybe I don't know.

That's my preach.

Patreon started off right now.

Uh I mean, yeah, it's just it's it's like a it's a big question.

Like, I think that we have to think really creatively about how to uh make it all work in this time.

Yeah, and I think ironically, lead does need to be some kind of online platform that does encourage this kind of free creativity, creative thinking between artists.

And I guess, you know, it does feel like the you know, we hear a lot about like uh AI slop and the kind of the shittification of the internet, and and it does sort of feel like on one hand, you know, we still have this tool for incredible connectivity, yet it is also being taken away from uh, you know, but with with again people being rooted out of their own communities, I mean, like artistic communities, I mean we could go a lot deeper than that, but just talking about artistic communities, um, we need the internet more than ever, really, to be able to do this.

Yeah, I mean, I think the internet has completely revolutionized the way that we communicate.

Um, but I don't think that it should be a supplement for like IRL engagement, you know.

Um, I feel very strongly about showing up and being like actually in the physical and like making physical physical communities with people.

I I think that that is actually an interesting alternative to the platformification of everything.

Yeah.

And um, just moving on a little bit with with the Oracle, I think one of the things that sort of really interested me about it was like where you recorded it.

So uh am I right in thinking you recorded it in a in a post-rainstorm cave in upstate New York?

Um, and you're you're no stranger even to recording in acoustic spaces that isn't that isn't traditionally used as recording spaces for music.

And I was wondering like what attracts you to recording in these spaces and perhaps like what attracted you to this particular space for the oracle?

Um, well, this particular space is um it's in my hometown.

Um it's called Widow Jane Mine.

And it's a former cement mine that was defunct in the early 20th century and then became a historic landmark.

And it was a place that I used to play in when I was a kid.

And um I've like made music there in pretty casual ways many times over the years.

Um, so it has like a you know place in my personal history.

I thought that it would be a really nice space for uh the particular flute I was using, uh just sonically.

Um it's a space that has a big underground lake.

So you get a lot of these beautiful, echoey, drippy sounds and um some of the kind of like it's not just an acoustic condition.

There's also diegetic sound that exists on the site that really flavors the the music.

So I think, you know, spaces like this and other abandoned warehouse style places are kind of like the uh promise of post-capitalism.

Um, you know, if uh I I think that as like venues go away and as like opportunities to present work in places become more minimal, that like, yeah, we have to think about using the wreckage of capitalism uh in order to like present some amazing underground culture.

That's that's yeah.

I mean, I really feel like there's something really fascinating about resonant spaces that uh and like work that's recorded in the resonant spaces and like the way like an extra voice or a dimension kind of emerges out of the work subsequently out of that, you know.

And I feel like you know, even looking back to things like Renaissance churches or like 13th century churches, the the way that choral singing would develop, you know, to sort of be in in kind of contact with the divine.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, do you have a what's your sort of take on that?

Because I feel like there, you know, I mean, I could read some things sort of transcendental into your music, but maybe that's just my subjective listening experience.

Yeah, I mean, I think that the fascination with resonance, it goes even farther back than that.

I think it goes back to the time that we were like living in caves and doing crazy rituals, you know, um, with bone flutes and drums and stuff.

I I, you know, I think that it's uh it's a it's a really amazing phenomenon that humans have been deep into for pretty much the entire Anthropocene.

So I think that it does like hearken back to something very deep within us.

I also think that it's like an interesting idea to um extend an instrument through acoustic space.

So that you're sort of playing a duet with the space, like using it as a meta instrument.

Yeah.

Have there been any particular times that you can think of that come to your mind now where doing that has surprised you in a particular way?

Oh yeah.

I mean, um, I remember years ago I was working in these um grain elevators, these big cast concrete silos in Buffalo, New York.

Um, my record resonance shapes uh was partially recorded there.

And it wasn't just the uh decay time.

It wasn't just the echo, it was also this crazy like stereo delay where the sound would bounce off of the flat top of the uh silo and then kind of ping back down.

So there was also this like stereo delay in addition to like the 13 seconds of of reverb.

So yeah, I mean, I think you know, being interested in the world around us is something that is really good for artists to be.

Um, to not be so like navel gazing all the time is is an important thing.

Um, and so yeah, I just I sort of see this as this like exploratory impulse that that I tend to have.

It's interesting you say like to not to be so navel gazing.

Um is there an could you imagine another you that would have taken like a more say song-based approach to music?

Could you imagine yourself as a say, um I'm not trying to do a slight to a singer songwriters at all, but could you imagine yourself following that path instead?

Um, yeah, I could.

And you know, who knows?

Who knows?

Who knows?

Exactly.

Yeah.

You know, I'm not gonna like paint myself into any corners here.

Um I think songwriting is a really specific kind of musical skill.

I've never, I can't say I've ever written a song, you know, like setting lyrics to music.

But I I think it, you know, to write a really good song is is difficult, um, even like a pop song.

And there are so many people out there who are like such experts at it, who are so good at that.

And I I feel like they they got it locked down.

I don't think I necessarily need to contribute um anything, but who knows?

Like, you know, if songs come to me, then I will I will um hearken.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I I think um uh yeah, it's it's good to know.

I mean, that's it's a good way of paying respect to songwriters there.

Because it is a it's not easy to write a good song.

Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think about like then the sort of reduction and simplification of something into something that can appear so simple yet uh has been reduced down.

I think of like great lyricists slowly, like sometimes me, great lyricists are people like Iggy Pop that have just like, you know, I'm bored, I'm the chairman of the board, you know, it's just the just reduce something just to like the barest essence.

Yes, totally.

But like, you know, there's so much um poetry in that.

And I mean, my favorite songs are ones that are poetic, like that, you know, that use language in interesting ways.

Yeah, you have to be a poet and a composer and an arranger and a performer to be a good songwriter.

What how how did music come into your life?

Did you have like a very early experience that sort of paved the way for you at all?

Um, you know, I don't come from a particularly musical family, but my family, my parents were big uh music appreciators.

Yeah.

Um, you know, they had pretty good taste in music.

I think, you know, like when I was a kid listening to my Walkman on the bus on the way to school in the morning, you know, I just it was um, I don't know, music has always felt very alive and transportative for me.

So I think it's just like a really potent art form.

It people either love a piece of music or they really hate a piece of music in a way that is um intense because sound is such a visceral medium, you know, like ah, this hurts my ears, or oh God, this is making me feel alive.

Um, I like the intensity of the reactions that people tend to have to music.

Yeah, you can't uh like you can look away from a painting.

Definitely, like I think that the way that uh space is defined by music enters space, it sort of can enter without permission, or whatever it is.

It's a it's a very intense thing like that.

And you know, because you are um you I I do consider what you do is you know, it is art and you know, work cross discipline and cross boundaries of art.

And I was wondering, did you feel that uh making music to you did that come out of a process of thinking as an artist?

Would you say?

I know it sounds like a weird question, but did you did you sort of like go into just making music and then Realize okay, this is what I'm doing, is like, you know, I can feel like that it can work in installations, it can work in uh galleries, it can work in different spaces, it could be considered in this way.

Um, oh, right, okay, that's a surprise to me.

Or did you set out, do you think, like as like an artist to do it?

Um, you know, I went to university for my undergrad degree um as a visual artist.

I studied photography and film.

And so um I think I always just thought like an artist about it.

Yeah.

Do you think visually about the music that you make?

Yeah, definitely.

Um all the music that I have has like color or text or like texture associations for me.

Um, like I can see the different parts of the music that I make in like an almost synesthetic way, I guess.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean I've always had that experience with music.

Have you have you had like a particular experience that you can think of where maybe you've ex sort of with maybe with someone else's music where you've experienced it, this sort of synesthesic effect with it?

Um I was a really big Sade fan when I was a kid.

And I remember like as a kid listening to that music and thinking like dark blue, violet, purple, dark green is like the color of that music for me.

I I know what you mean.

I mean, for me, it's hard to detangle that from like an era and the sleeve artwork and a sort of era of design.

Um, like when I when I hear Sardet, like I also sort of think of the kind of very I think of like a very dark ocean blue, like a night ocean blue.

I think it's her voice.

I think she's got that quality in her voice.

It's kind of deeper, yeah.

It's got a lot of like texture to it, a lot of breath in it.

It's like velvety.

Right.

So I wonder if that's something that she can, because of the depth and quality of her voice, uh multiple people can have similar synesthic readings of it that kind of match up.

Yeah, I wonder.

I don't know how that works.

Like, I don't think that there's a universal, like, synesthetic experience.

I think it's different for people, but I don't know.

I wonder.

Yeah, I was wondering because if there was, it could be mapped into sort of some kind of communication, but I don't know if anyone's really done that.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'd be interested to, I'm sure that somebody's done some research about that.

Definitely.

There's definitely like some some, yeah, somebody wrote a paper about that at some point.

Definitely did, and then they ran out of funding or they became disillusioned at some point.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

And I mean, do you feel like you come from a particular lineage at all?

Like, do you feel like you know, in terms of like experimental or electroacoustic music?

Of course, New York has this incredible rich history of of such.

Like, do you do you sort of do you feel like you come from anywhere, any particular lineage when it comes to that?

Um, I would definitely say that I feel like you know, my predecessors within the New York avant-garde are all extended family members.

You know, I feel like regardless if you know them or not, do you mean?

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Like, you know, Harry Smith, my great grandfather, like, you know, like Uncle, like Aunt Patty Smith, like, you know, um, uh I do feel definitely connected to like the New York tradition.

Um and you know, that that doesn't mean that that's exclusive, you know.

I I definitely there's a lot of other artists from other places and non-experimental stuff that I also draw a lot of influence from.

But I would say that like I do see like New York avant-garde as like, yeah, an extended family.

Yeah.

I I mean, I do um just personally when I listen to your music, sometimes I pick out uh things.

This is just again my very, very subjective take.

You know, I I hear like elements of say Stockhausen and Didier Derbyshire in terms of like particularly like with things like sometimes like the tape, uh the tape manipulation, if I feel like a sense of I guess like playfulness that you see back in the day with uh electroacoustic music that perhaps in some cases has been ironed out now because you know when anything becomes like it stops being new, people like take it seriously in a different way.

And I'm not for a second saying your music isn't serious, but I there's a there's an element of play there in terms of how I hear it.

Is that something that you connect with, or is there a sense of play that you feel that you like to put into your work?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I feel like experimental music is not a genre, yeah, it's a process.

Um, it's a it's a it's an ethos.

So I don't think like experimental music sounds any particular way.

I think it's the process of fucking around and finding out, you know.

By definition.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's it's like I'm not entirely sure um how to use this thing.

And so, like, you know, whatever piece of gear I have, and and so I'm going to like see what it does and experiment with it.

So it's this like ethos of experimentalism um that guides what I'm doing.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I've defined now a voice for myself.

Like my music sounds like my music, I think.

It doesn't have it has like a particular aesthetic, but I'm always like arriving at it through experimental means.

Um and this is why I like using tape a lot, because um, unlike computers, which do usually hopefully what they what you tell them to do, um, tape is a little bit more slippery.

Um, there's a lot of room for mistakes and happy accidents and and things like that.

So yeah, I also think that tape lends itself well to that.

Yeah, and I don't think particularly for dealing with resonance, tape is fantastic for echo and resonance and reverb and and uh and bleeding, you know, and and and I I guess it's also that there must be an element of conversation that you can have with analog that you can't have with with digital in that sense, that you know you are putting such such an element of it out to chance or to accident and mistakes that you're you're in a kind of form of improvisation and dialogue with yourself.

Yeah, definitely.

Um, and there's also limitations within analog technology.

Digital is, you know, Max MSP can can do so many things.

It's it's such an amazingly powerful tool.

Um, and analog, you know, you have more restrictions, more limitations.

So figuring out how to work within limitations is something that I think can make for really interesting moments to happen.

Yeah.

And in terms of like experimental scenes and lineage, I guess there's also this perception of gatekeeping.

And this is something that I've spoken about previously with with with some guests, and about um it I think it can have a perception, scenes can have a perception of being incredibly gatekeeped.

And there's always different ways of looking at that.

Like sometimes like gatekeeping isn't, I think, is necessary for for protecting community values, and and the other time it can just be like fucking elitism, really, you know.

And um, like I was wondering, did you, you know, what kind of experiences you've had and and uh in terms of like your encountering with gatekeeping and where you stand on it in terms of your relationship with it?

Um, you know, I feel like when I first started out getting into the scene of like noise, music, and that kind of stuff, it was, you know, pretty homogenous in terms of like who was allowed to participate.

Um and I think that it's gotten better over the years.

Yeah, gatekeeping is weird.

I I still feel like there's a lot of gatekeeping, I think, you know.

I mean, anyone who's a curator is a gatekeeper.

Um, and so it's like you have to wonder who um who has the luxury of being a curator?

Like who has the luxury of going to school for that um medium, right?

Like who has the luxury of being able to like work for free in art galleries for five years before they get an actual paid position, right?

So I think it actually has to do a lot with class, yeah.

Um, which is like not something that's ever discussed within like social justice talk in the arts.

Um, so I think that, yeah, this question of gatekeeping also is about like um the fact that there are not many working class artists and hardly any working class curators.

So I think that that like elitism is built into the the whole system.

Um I think that like in DIY communities it's better.

Yeah.

Um, not to say that it doesn't exist, but I think it's like a little easier to penetrate.

Um, you don't have to have gone to Yale, you know, to like get a show in a basement somewhere.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but of course, then that that is very limiting because you know, there's like no production, you know, like you're playing out of like a shitty guitar amp.

So that can also be limiting.

So yeah, I mean, I think the question of gatekeeping depends on specifically what you're like what spaces you're talking about, like high-end art spaces, concert halls, or like underground culture.

I think there's it's different.

I think sometimes to me it's about the fluidity to move between these types of spaces can feel very gate-kept.

Yeah, no, I mean, that's something that I have been able to do more and more in the last 10 years.

And it's something I'm grateful for because sometimes doing like higher-end shows can be a little like cold and alienating and too professionalized.

And then in like a DIY situation, that's like where you get to have fun and like really interface with people and really like be human together.

So but yeah, there it there is a big division there, and I don't know.

I think I wish there was less of one.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I put that on to you at the end to kind of come up with an answer for it.

And I hope you didn't feel you had to have an answer for solving gatekeeping because um is yeah, it's it's I feel like, yeah, definitely sometimes like when you know I think about these things and I think about like my relationship to them, and I start talking about them.

I feel like I actually I have no answer, it's more about like raising it, you know, and discussing something really, you know.

I think it's really good to talk about.

And I my my thing is that like I try to treat people as equally as I can, you know.

Um, there are many artists who operate in this way that is very much based on hierarchy, where they're like nicer to people with power and just more dismissive of people that they perceive as not having any power or anything to offer them.

And that's so um against the way that I like to exist in the world.

So that's you know, that's kind of like what I try to do in order to like counter gatekeeping and counter like any kind of hierarchies I discover.

Yeah, and that's a really nice way of doing it.

I mean, I was thinking about this today, and I was sort of thinking as like a sort of I guess like you know, comparatively privileged person being like white cis living in Europe.

For me, it's like about tapping into a kind of masculinity and rewiring it.

So it's like if you still think about conventional gallantry, it's like rather than open the door for someone like on a bus, although I do that, it's about like, can I give up my space for someone when there is one space for someone that like needs the opportunity more than me, or can I uh is there someone I can give space to, really, you know, in a in a situation rather than myself.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's also about like radical egalitarianism.

Yeah.

You know?

Um, because also like it's sometimes it's hard to determine like who needs an opportunity, right?

Yeah.

Like, how do you how do you know how privileged someone really is?

Yeah, I guess I guess a good starting point, and again, I'm not the best person to speak about this.

I just try to do my best and learn and listen is is to just sort of be kind and listen and to give space where I can.

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's part of you know, um, cultivating the type of solidarity that like we need to cultivate in order to like be unified against the real enemy, like the true enemy.

Yeah.

And you know, you seem to have like a really like strident spirit when it comes to being able to articulate both your music and your words here about creativity in relation to the current situation, current situation we all find ourselves in.

Do you feel like at the end of the day, do you feel like you're an optimist?

Um, it's so hard to be an optimist right now.

Yeah.

It is so hard to be an optimist.

I don't know.

Um, you know, I was recently thinking about there's this notion of neutral thinking.

Okay, what's that?

So it's like, you know, you can be a pessimist, you can be an optimist, you can uh try to manifest there all this, all these different ways of like rationalizing our existence and attaining our goals.

And um, but neutral thinking is just like non-judgmental thinking.

And it um it actually like has a lot of resonance with like Buddhist um philosophy of non-discrimination.

So neutral thinking, yeah, is like they use it a lot in sports psychology where it's like, okay, well, I lost this game instead of like ragging on myself because I like made a mistake, you know, you just see what happened in like a neutral, detached way, and then try to like you know, not do that again.

So I'm kind of interested in in this idea of neutral thinking, of taking things as they come and trying to adjust accordingly.

Um, it's so easy to be a pessimist right now.

Yeah.

I think I naturally gravitate towards pessimism, right?

Actually, but I think that I don't know, it's tough.

I I I I'm I'm trying to like make myself be more neutral in my thinking.

I think that's a nice way of putting it.

I mean, I feel like I have a tendency to slip towards like a stupid optimism, then I always crash um and have like a very, you know, pessimistic reaction through uh yeah, exactly.

So sort of like finding this neutral center point that's that's not even a center point, really, is it?

It's just like a neutral perspective.

Like I feel one thing that is lacking at the moment is a sense of objectivity.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I think anything that we can do to sort of like steady ourselves right now is really helpful.

Yeah.

Um, because the waves that we have to ride are so extreme.

Um, so anything that we can do to keep ourselves like centered and and grounded um within the context of this like mania is helpful.

Yeah.

Nerves are shredded.

Like, you know, it's it's it's terrifying, you know, like what that physic you know, like the physical reaction that can happen from just scrolling, you know, like uh finding out something really bad, and we're all like, ah, back's aching, you know, I feel tense.

I feel like I've had five more coffees than I actually have.

And just glancing at the news or like overhearing something on the radio, yeah, yeah.

Um, and it's not to say that it's not to like downplay the extreme the extremity of it, because like this is extreme, this is different than anything we have ever experienced, um, and it's worse.

Yeah.

So oh god, does that make me a pessimist?

Um, I mean, maybe I mean someone could say realist, or this is I don't know.

Um I feel like it's it's it's realistic, like it actually is realistic and and true to like call it what it is.

Yeah, we're what we're heading into uncharted waters.

Well, we stepped quite away into uncharted waters, but I I think, yeah, what can it's you know, can't be, you know, we're not talking about good vibes only.

That's something completely different.

That's this is just about like looking after yourself, I think, being able to look after yourself to be strong enough to be able to carry on, function, make good decisions, both for your family and your friends and your yourself, and to be able to look at what's going on using like a passive way of doing it, I guess.

Yeah, well, and also, you know, the regime wants us to be sad and afraid, you know, that's really what they want.

And so again, like part of resistance is not giving them what they want.

Yeah, yeah.

And just finally, I'd love to ask if you could go back to your younger self just at that point before you started releasing music, when you were just you know stepping into the threshold of putting something out, putting, you know, stepping into the role of like an active artist, what would you tell yourself?

I would tell myself to be more patient.

And I would remind myself that you know, I I remember feeling really frustrated uh because of like kind of gatekeeping stuff that I experienced really early on.

And I guess I would tell myself that like whatever opportunities I get or I don't get.

Are so that like my work can develop and that things always come in waves and I won't get any opportunities that I'm not like ready for yet.

Yeah.

I still tell myself that, you know.

I mean it's still like part of the struggle, right?

Yeah.

I mean, I would seriously not trust anyone that said, Yeah, I'm I've got it sorted.

I know what I'm doing.

I I'm at the point of just like completely knowing what's going on.

That's just insane.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

There's yeah, if you're too self-assured, then maybe you're not challenging yourself enough.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Leah, thank you so much for chatting with me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Paul.

Nice to be in touch.

Okay, so that was me, Paul Hamford, talking with Leah Batucci.

And we had that conversation on October the 10th, 2025.

Thank you so much, Leah, for sharing your time and thoughts with me there.

The album, The Oracle, is out now on CyberCrome Editions.

I hope I've pronounced that correctly.

You can buy it on vinyl CD, download, and stream, but not on Spotify.

Oh, yes.

Thank you so much, Leah.

Um, if you like the show and you haven't already, please do give it a subscribe, give the show a rating and a review on a platform of your choice.

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And yeah, so thanks so much for listening.

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And so, yeah, that's it.

I hope whatever you're doing, you're having a really amazing one.

I hope your year has started really well, and I'll chat to you soon.