"BILLION YEARS of SIGHS" review in VOLCANIC TONGUE

Junko/Michel Henritzi/Rinji Fukuoka
Billion Years Of Sighs
An'archives An’07
LP
£18.99

Beautifully assembled limited to only 150 copies LP with silkscreened sleeves and obi strip: Billion Years Of Sighs features two duo workings by French avant guitarist Michel Henritzi, with Henritzi playing infinite tones on an aggressively articulated lapsteel. The A side is a duo with Junko, vocalist for Hijokaidan and it kind of has to be heard to be believed, with Henritzi combining long, doomy, pregnant drones of malevolent steel strings alongside some tactile, percussive fist assaults while Junko makes with some of her most emotionally chilling and hysterically disruptive free vocal shrieks and imprecations. It’s hard to believe that such a frail frame can generate the kind of high phantom electric tones of Junko without permanently damaging herself and somehow Henritzi’s more minimal (though still explosive) style brings out a quality of terror and despair in her vocals that sound like deep post-Patty Waters body sound blues. Incredible. Over on the flip Henritzi is joined by Rinji Fukuoka of Overhang Party/Majutsu No Niwa on violin, voice and percussion and the sound is closer to the amazing split LP Fukuoka cut with the late Jutok Kaneko back in the day, Searchin’ For My Layline, with Fukuoka’s dark, distant vocal drones and fuzz-punk eternal music stylings creating void-gargling zones of pure black tone that Henritzi blows apart with almost Charalambides-scale desert blues assaults and walls of pure Velvet thunder. Totally fantastic, beautifully packaged, highly recommended. 

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