Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Kevin Parks & Joe Foster (Vitalweekly Review)

Kevin Parks is a member of the HzCollective and 1/3 of the avant garde improvised music group Pinko Communoids from Charlottesville.
KEVIN PARKS & JOE FOSTER - IPSI SIBI SOMNIA FINGUNT (CD, private)
These boys have guts. A nice package, a pro-pressed CD, but besides their names, a title for the release, the year and track titles, no other information. No label, no website. The note said 'improvisations from Seoul', but that's it. Quite odd. Perhaps they don't want to sell it? I can't see why that should be. It's a bit hard to tell what sources Kevin Parks and Joe Foster up (down?) in Seoul are using. At times I thought they were dueling guitars and electronics, like reverb and echo units, but then there might also be some computer involvement. Or perhaps not. Things work best when they keep their material under control. That is when things are carefully played, feedback kept under control, blowing balloons and let the sustain run out beyond it's decay. When not, and those moments are also present here, things explode in a loud and vicious manner. This is more towards the end of the CD than at the quite strong first two tracks. With considerable lengths, this is a bit overlong and the editing tool could have been used more. However if one could play just the first two pieces and the softer opening of the third, then one has a great CD. Switch it off when things get out of control. (FdW)
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