BILLION YEARS OF SIGHTS REVIEW in SOUNDPROJECTOR

Junko / Michel Henritzi / Fukuoka Rinji
Billion Years Of Sighs
AN’ ARCHIVES AN’07 LP (2014)

Similarly generous helpings from An’archives records, who serve up a Franco-Japanese sound summit in a truly handsome package – a limited edition LP on a satisfyingly thick slab of vinyl, in a silk-screen printed sleeve with the all-important obi strip. The music is pretty handsome too.

Side one features lapsteel wrangler Michel Henritzi and his Junko partner, live in Brussels, summoning the demons with a top notch blast of avant-garde blues and free noise. It’s very hard to believe that these explosions of feedback are being played on a lapsteel, an instrument more usually associated with country bands or palm fringed Hawaiian beaches. It’s also hard to believe that a human being can scream so hard and so long without doing themselves a mischief, but Junko seems to manage it easily enough, and she makes it all weirdly melodic in the process.

Side two documents two Spanish performances by Henritzi with Fukuoka Rinji on violin, voice and percussion. These are more reflective and melancholy pieces, relatively speaking, and would sit very nicely next to the Kyriakides and Moor tunes on any discerning heavy modal fuzz-blues playlist.

Music to jumpstart your heartbeats (just remember you’ve only got a billion to spare).

by Ian Sherred in SOUNDPROJECTOR

http://www.thesoundprojector.com/