SOUND PROJECTOR MAGAZINE REVIEWS

Quite a contrast to the above is Shiroi Kao (AN’ARCHIVES AN-15). This record is credited to Fuji Yuki, Michel Henritzi and Harutaka Mochizuki teaming up in various combinations across four cuts. On ‘Naki Tsuma No Kushi’, heavy blastage shall be your daily soup, in a mighty drone noise produced simply by saxophone and lapsteel guitar for about ten mins. This might not be too far apart from what Ulrich Krieger is attempting with his powerful “noise-metal saxophone” records, except there’s a slightly industrial edge persisting with this relentless music, an aspect which the spirit of Zbigniew Karkowski would probably smile on from his heavenly refuge. But then the next track is a romantic song, ‘Ano Koe Anata Datta No’, showcasing the light-touch talents of Fuji Yuki, a vocalist of intense beauty. She performs over a background of string arrangements overdubbed with remarkable sensitivity by Henritzi, and somehow it conjures up a vision of 19th-century Japan with the eerie precision of a dream. Many more surprises and contrasts on the remainder of album, including the near-psychedelic free-form floatery of track 3, where all three musicians create a limpid blend, an intoxicating brew; and the uncanny textures of the last track, another sax-gtr duo where the players are outdoing each other in the production of non-natural soundings; for the listener, it’s like entering an exotic bestiary from the middle ages. One magical disc.

Ed Pinsent