Here’s another worthy album for the canon of Japanese minimalism, Oscilation Circuit’s Série Réflexion 1. Released in 1984, by Sound Process, ostensibly a new part or truncation of Satoshi Ashikawa’s “Wave Notation” series, Série Réflexion 1 perfectly presents another facet of the label’s promotion of minimal music. This time around we get a feel of livelier stuff than any of the other records in this series.
Oscilation Circuit was a four piece group led by keyboardists Kenichiro Isoda and Hiroshi Hirohashi. Under their tutelage, other members of the group — saxophonist Nobuya Sagawa and percussionist/brother Shigeharu Isoda — functioned more akin to a really restrained ECM jazz team. While Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music For Nine Post Cards took inspiration from Brian Eno’s ambient music, and Satoshi Ashikawa Still Way (Wave Notation 2) found it in the barely there music of R. Murray Schafer, similarly to Satsuki Shibano’s spectral reimagining of everyone’s favorite impressionist composer (Erik Satie) Erik Satie (France 1866-1925)…it appears that Oscilation Circuit drew their inspiration from other “minimal” music: from the hypnotic, American minimalism of Terry Riley, Miles Davis, and La Monte Young.
Série Réflexion 1 is composed of three compositions. The first one “Homme” driven by Hiroshi Hirohashi’s very Yoshimura-esque electric piano playing, this song uses piano sustain (with its accompanying overtones) and treated piano plinks to perfectly capture that sound of the “winter blues” one encounters in the photograph, of this record’s back cover. Delicate, inviting, and melancholic, Hiroshi’s song would perfectly slot into the rest of the series’ masterworks. Here, you can hear Steve Reich’s own hypnotic music place some notable influence, as well.
Things shift with the final two compositions written by future video game composer Kenichiro Isoda. “Nocturne” a track largely driven by Nobuya Sagawa outstanding, minimal sax playing, brings to mind Wayne Shorter’s work for Miles Davis in his In A Silent Way or Miles’ own take on modal music in Jack Johnson. It’s here the submersive deep, deep organ tones Kenichiro Isoda uses, keep the hypnotic undertones slowly, profoundly, spinning in a gorgeous bit of music unlike any in the Wave Notation series. Nocturnal mood music, with a highest air of rarity, is my take on this track.
Then, the album ends on its most spirited work. “Circling Air” composed/performed by Kenichiro Isoda but joined by Hiroshi Hirohashi begins as a wandering take on Terry Riley’s cyclical, quasi-repetitive, organ and piano-esque melodicism. With time, as the song warms up to Nobuya Sagawa’s unbridled sax playing and Shigeharu Isoda’s carefree percussion, the track opens itself up — in volume and tempo — to all sorts of unique echoes, counter-melodies, and emotions. Hypnotic would be an understatement to call this track or assign to this album. On a cold winter day, Série Réflexion 1 sure does feel like a welcome respite from all sorts of heavy weather — you could say: it’s music for self-reflection.