Michel Henritzi, Rinji Fukuoka

Michel Henritzi, lapsteel, guitar, effects. Fukuoka Rinji, violin, bells, effects, vocals. A stark and moving collaboration between the French avant-garde guitarist Michel Henritzi and Fukuoka Rinji, formerly of Overhang Party and currently of Majutsu no Niwa. The track titles of their first duo album limn a cosmos out of joint, hopeless and despairing - suns in eclipse, falling angels, the ghosts of Fukushima. The mood is emphasized in the bleak, dystopian photography of the jacket with its bare, wintry trees and landscapes devoid of human presence. The music translates these ideas into actuality, echoed and stark sonorities that question, lament, mourn. Henritzi's lapsteel and guitar summon up grey drone fields, shimmering with baleful energy over which Fukuoka floats elegiac, writhing lines of violin and emotionally resonant yet wordless vocals. 'A deep stillness is apparent in Michel's music. It 's not something he has come to possess through playing electric guitar, rather it's more like an innate and very important part of his temperament. Either way, it's an extremely rare quality even among artists.' - Kazuki Tomokawa.