Junko / Michel Henritzi Fear Of Music / Berlin, With Love

The stamina-defying screamer of Japanese noise and longtime vocalist for Hijo Kaidan joins wrecker of civilization and one-third of The Dustbreeders for two sides of very pleasant unpleasantness. Henritzi's improvised guitar-playing is the real surprise here, with its curiously cinema-conscious restraint, hovering around the perplexing intersection of an imaginary Giallo scored by Morricone and the calm brunch entertainment at a grim eastern European café. Quite a deviation from the "glorious, unholy racket" of his vinyl-noise trio. Junko, meanwhile, colors the foreground with her trademark bird-getting-strangled-by-a-dentist-on-a-chalkboard vocals (say whatever you want, comedian, she's heard it all before) but here shrieks with almost zero adornment, to the point where she achieves an unusual variation on repetitive minimalism. The sublime tension between the two players forms a rarely heard, abject desperation that seems impossible to satisfy. Edition of 100.