Tetuzi Akiyama, Michel Henritzi - Broken Blues (2018) [Hi-Res]

Reissue of an ultra-limited cdr that popped out quietly on absurd in 2007, this record finds Tetuzi Akiyama and Michel Henritzi joining strengths for a singular set of guitar music recorded at the Alchemy Music Store in Osaka.

Captured during the heyday of stylised and pensive improvisation, the music here breaks protocol by avoiding some of the more polite mannerisms of the genre. What starts as a coarse yet beautiful duet of sparse melodic fragments, soon brings into fold the systematic undoing of the bodies of the two guitars themselves. Putting drills, hammers, nails, screws and saws into good use, and with maximum amplification, the two artists manage to bridge the distance between the freely atonal sketches of post-Derek Bailey guitar music and the Fluxus tradition of more overtly disruptive actions. In the process, they craft a singular work that, through raw tactile means, channels some of the violence and expressiveness that runs deep throughout the long tradition of guitar music.