0/r is Nosei Sakata (*0) and Richard Chartier. the collaboration was realized in mid 1999 entirely through the mail between the US and japan. Raw tones and sounds on minidisc were sent to Chartier and returned to *0 with new sounds and tracks made from *0’s original sounds. This back and forth continued several times, the track titles indicating this process. The cd also includes two tracks “r” and “0” which are original solo works by each artist inspired by the collaboration.
Although the two have never before collaborated, their sound and aesthetic are a perfect compliment to each other. Chartier’s sparse sinewave sculptures have been described as “impossibly extreme tonal stuttering” (the wire, UK) and “soundtrack to a wall-socket” (ambience, australia) while “*0 taps the potential full-frontal lobe attack of power-electronics in the momentary, powerful static bursts which erupt throughout” (gil gershman). The result is an album of the extremes – from the ultrahigh frequency of “0r” (an intro that many may not even hear, registering in at around 18khz, just below the upper limit of human hearing) to the 40hz basspulse of “0/r.”. Static and nth generations of digital sound simultaneously whine and click with machine precision and break away in fractured compositional space.
