Lucynine

A name for the musical work

Lucynine is the solo project of Turin-based Italian multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer and photographer Sergio Bertani. The project developed as a space where composition, performance and production could remain under one author while still moving freely between extreme-metal forms.

Sergio Bertani has explained that Lucynine is the name of the musical project rather than a stage identity replacing his own name. Photography and video work continue under Sergio Bertani; music, soundtracks and related multimedia can take the Lucynine name. That distinction matters because the project’s history includes film and theatre work that did not always appear in its public discography.

The 2013 EP and the long road to a debut

Earlier work, including Chronicles from Leri and the 2020 full-length Amor Venenat, was deliberately heterogeneous. Bertani later described that first album as material written across different periods, a quality he once considered a strength but came to see as something that could also divide or disorient listeners.

An EP appeared in 2013, but the years before the first album were not empty. Bertani worked on two short films, assuming video, text and music for one and soundtrack, audio and voice direction for another. One production began the collaboration with actor and voice artist Dario Penne. Economic difficulty also forced Bertani to sell much of his studio, delaying music under the Lucynine name. The 2020 quarantine EP Tribute to Titor began as a joke and became a real release.

Amor Venenat: grief made into structure

Amor Venenat appeared on 31 July 2020 after material had accumulated across different years. Bertani connected it directly to the death of his husband from cancer in 2018 after an eleven-year relationship; they married twenty-six hours before the death, following a diagnosis only fifteen days earlier. He described the sixty-seven-minute record as a cathartic curse against love, extending from family rejection and the experience of homosexuality to bereavement, anger and disbelief. These are attributed first-person statements, not editorial diagnosis.

Melena: three months of concentrated pressure

The five-track, roughly thirty-two-minute Melena was released in 2025. Its title is a medical term for black, tar-like stool caused by digested blood, selected to convey something black and visceral without using a familiar metal cliché. The album’s intensity is tied in published interviews to a difficult personal period; that context must be handled without embellishment.

Opera al nero was built sequentially and uses a film sample from Rosemary’s Baby as part of its ascent toward a climax. That example shows how the album’s coherence does not mean uniformity: cinematic material, electronic density and metal instrumentation are organised toward a particular dramatic function. Bertani’s broad listening beyond metal helps explain the available palette, but the chronology should describe demonstrable techniques rather than assign every influence to a specific passage.

Melena arose by the opposite method. Bertani wrote, performed, recorded, mixed and mastered it in roughly three months during summer 2022. Five tracks and thirty-two minutes replaced the earlier album’s sprawling accumulation. He deliberately used dirt, distortion and extreme compression to create a painful wall of sound, while groove and structure still offered points of orientation. The title is a medical term whose attractive sound conflicts with its bodily meaning, mirroring the record’s refusal of decorative darkness.

Talheim Records Germany and the 2025 edition

Talheim Records Germany released Melena as TRG012CD. Sources differ on the precise date: the CMS currently records 1 January 2025, while later coverage states 3 October 2025. This conflict must remain visible until the label and artist confirm the authoritative release date.

Talheim Records Germany released Melena on 3 October 2025 according to the dated label-facing interview record. Other publicity carried a later date, so manufacturing, digital publication and campaign milestones must be separated before a final public chronology is approved. The label relationship belongs to Melena; it must not be projected backward onto the 2013 EP, Tribute to Titor or Amor Venenat.

A solo practice across music and images

Bertani has stated that improved health would make an exact repetition of Melena neither possible nor desirable, while leaving other areas of the psyche open to future work. That is a reflection on process, not a confirmed release announcement.

Theatre, voices and cinematic construction

Bertani’s theatre and photography work is not incidental biography. Amor Venenat used actors and voice artists, including Dario Penne, and organised spoken material beside metal, industrial and classical references. Opera al nero on Melena was built sequentially toward a climax and incorporated a sample from Rosemary’s Baby. These choices show a continuing cinematic method even when the second album abandoned the debut’s many guests and became an entirely solo performance.

Looking back without rewriting the earlier record

In later interviews Bertani described Amor Venenat with affection but also recognised the disadvantages of material created across very different periods: some listeners valued its range, while others found it confusing. He contrasted that heterogeneity with Melena’s coherence and continued to enjoy the later record years after making it. This retrospective judgement belongs to 2025-2026 and should not be projected onto what he said in 2020, when the breadth of the debut was understood as a defining strength.