Lea Bertucci and Michael Beharie team up as Bow and Arrow on a self-titled debut Bertucci describes as “devotional music for the age of alienation.” Mingling plainchant with spectral instrumentation, the duo creates a space in which revelation might occur.
In the cover image, a woman seems to be cradling an urn, suggesting a combination of love and grief. The presence of “Last Wish” at the center solidifies such an impression. Bow and Arrow also offers a form of transcendence, operating as a spiritual guide. From the very beginning, bells line the pathway as aural luminaries, drawing the listener to the Divine.
“Gem” is peaceful, organic and calm, suggesting a desert experience. Voices echo and fluctuate like visitations upon prophets. The pace is unhurried, as no destination is in mind. Comprehension seems just beyond reach, until vocal repetition suggests that feeling is far more important than thought. While the ancient mystics lacked the ability to create such music, this music has the capability to imitate the mystics.
Both “Gem” and “Last Wish” are also available as single edits, which serves one purpose while bisecting another. In the ten-minute versions, time becomes a factor in an unexpected fashion: there is so much time that one forgets time, surrendering to the flow. A folk tinge surfaces: the countryside, the troubadour, the traveling monk. Happy handclaps suggest happy adherents.
“Regina” marks a shift in the music, from impression to clarity. Bow and Arrow sing in Latin, incorporating clearcut “Amen”s. As if to balance, the instrumentation takes a decided turn to the electronic. One imagines Hildegard von Bingen transported to the current century, singing as she always has, but with new accompaniment. The reference is to “Salve Regina,” which implores the intervention of Mary. Thankfully, the prayer, all too often coopted in bland New Age renditions, finds an edge in the electronic treatment of the chimes, a technique applied to the chant itself at the beginning of the closing “Coco.” If these are fractured times, it makes sense that prayers and music, words and notes, would be fractured as well. Bow and Arrow’s devotional music is more likely to be heard through earbuds, cell phones and laptops than it is to be played in church, but this increases its authenticity: music for the masses, extracted from the Mass. (Richard Allen)
