and/12

Regardless of what some may think upon giving this release a cursory
listen, it is not "just another collection of field recordings from somewhere in
Asia". Those with the capacity to listen to such a release with some degree
of "poetical imagination", will discover a rather peculiar release that is "an
enigma wrapped inside a mystery." Shisō contains 34 field recording
vignettes made on the Japanese islands of Honshu and Shikoku. Some of
the recordings are longer versions of the tracks that were part of the
Palimpsest exhibit on the Stasis_space website. The recordings contain no
processing apart from some fade outs and there are 33 silent tracks of
varying length, making the total track number 67 in all. This is another
release that is highly recommended to be played while in the random/shuffle
mode on your CD player.

Addendum: Very reminiscent of the work of Yasujiro Ozu - in particular his
use of "pillow shots" which and/OAR later paid homage to with "Yasujiro Ozu
- Hitokomakura" (and/26). Of course Koura (Brian Labycz) was invited to
participate in that project.

Cover design by Brian Labycz & Dale Lloyd.
Packaged in a DVD case.

Reviews
__________________________________________________________________________________

Ear / Rational (April 2004)
One thing that is nice about this field recording disc is that some of the tracks
fade in and out slowly, I hate when these field recording CDs just cut in and
out, very jarring to the atmosphere they create. The fades on this disc create
a dreamy effect - the first track seems like a recorder left on in an apartment,
the second inside a train or subway. These are glimpses of life, the things
we take for granted. Things like street scenes and your apartment neighbor's
TV being on, but you can barely hear it though they are fed back to us, and
you notice what you hear when you stop this disc. Some of the tracks are
more exotic, but they are things you want to hear when you are at home. The
exotic tracks include ocean waves and a series of short tracks of a religious
ceremony, walking in a park, machines in nature, people talking, and many
others. Keeping the tracks short is an odd/fresh way to put this all together.
(Don Poe)