A trip which includes a passage through drizzle and cloud, beyond roaming satellites and finally so far out of sight that it begins catching up with radio programs still travelling outward into space on their microwaves.
Sachiko is a busy experimental vocalist who began performing in Nagoya in 1988 before moving to Tokyo in 2001 to continue her career. During this time, she has played with an impressive number of groups, including Overhang Party, where she met the like-minded Rinji Fukuoma. Performing on and off as a duo for a number of years, this is the first recording together. In the recent past, she also recorded a respectable number of solo albums, some released on Musik Atlach, her own label, while Fukuoma has been a central member in a plethora of psychedelic rock bands.
Sachiko’s prime instrument is her voice, a discreet, unearthly keen, and Fukuoma joins her with his more chthonic one. On the title track, which I take for Greek and have parsed as “indivisible” or “as one,” Fukuoma swirls electronics with trembling cello and violin to lift Sachiko’s voice on its flight heavenward, a trip which includes a passage through drizzle and cloud, beyond roaming satellites and finally so far out of sight that it begins catching up with radio programs still travelling outward into space on their microwaves. Indeed, Fukuoma literally plays the radio at the end of both tracks, a surprising, and surprisingly effective conceit.
Each half-hour track was recorded live, the title track in Tokyo and “Prayer of a Fool” in front of an audience at the Église Saint-Merry in Paris. The two slowly raise their voices in a harmony that soon soars, followed closely by their electronic shadows, and develops into an airborne struggle worthy of a wuxia film, a martial battle of vocals which Fukuoma wins overpoweringly. The victor throws open doors to the church and in rush acrimonious demons, much to the agonized chagrin of a recovered Sachiko, but the apparent delight of the audience.
Two dramatic, unusual and complementary pieces, a seamless forging song and machine.
άTOMO∑ is available on Musik Atlach.
