Joe Foster, Takahiro Kawaguchi - oscillation. vacillation CD

Format – CD
Label – Balloon & Needle
Release – 2009

収録曲
1 Oscillation 16:22
2 Vacillation 39:47

Recorded At – Kaywon School Of Arts And Design

Electronics – Joe Foster (3)
Performer [Remodeled Counters, Selfmade Objects, Tuning Forks] – Takahiro Kawaguchi
Performer [Speakers, Piezo Vibration] – Ryu Hankil
Turntables [Without Cartridge] – Hong Chulki

[review by Brian Olewnick]
Firstly, excellent CD sleeve design in play here--two L-shaped pockets that overlap one another around the disc. Two tracks, one relatively short (@ 13 minutes) one over 40. Quiet, often fluttery, only rarely edging into territory adjacent to "Driller". It's been interesting to hear the infiltration of rhythm in the form of clocks and other counting-type machines in some portion of new Korean and Japanese improvisation. Here, there's often some kind of beating or ticking element in play though I guess calling them "rhythms" is stretching the point, though the second cut ends with a humorous kind of gentle, three-beat horsey clip-clop. They don't propel things forward; if anything, one has the sense of hovering, like a hummingbird or dragonfly. It's a fine session, though, the quartet managing that tough feat of being fairly busy and active but entirely avoiding a sense of the cluttered or cloying. A nice sense of the space of the room. Fine recording, held my attention every step of the way. Get it.

[review on Vital Weekly by Frans de Waard]
The quartet release of Koreans Chulki and Hankil along with Takahiro Kawaguchi (from Japan) and Joe Foster (originally from the USA but since 2002 in Korea) is by contrast a more 'regular' album of improvisation. There is no information on the album as to who plays what or when and where it was recorded and judging by my ears this is a duet of electronics (analogue), contact microphones, feedback, turntables and other cracked electronics. Much softer than the 'Driller' release, this one bounces up and down the scale. Sometimes loud, sometimes inaudible soft. There is lots and lots of stuff going on here, making this a highly vibrant record. The absence of real instruments, yet while strictly in improvising field, make this a most exciting record. It could have a bit more information, I'd say. (FdW)