condition (disc/cover): NM / NM 

Shimada's first CD and the third Agencement release, Viosphere was cut at 203 Studio in Tokyo across several months of 1990 and early 1991, then pressed in a private edition of 500 copies on the Pico imprint. The title is a portmanteau of "biosphere" and "violin": precise nomenclature for what the record does.

Two untitled long-form tracks, each the length of an LP side, which is no accident. Shimada deploys what he calls a laminal technique, shredding the violin's attack into fine fragments via tape and digital processing, then hand-reconstructing the layers into something that moves like the surface of slow-running water. Extended technique, pizzicati, bowed scrapings, and electronic treatment fold into each other at such saturation that the distinction between instrumental and synthesised sound quietly dissolves. Shimada later remarked that the project's ambition was closer to the gentle murmur of a natural river than to any discrete musical gesture.

The record positions Agencement near the Systems Music tradition of Alvin Lucier and late Tony Conrad, but its phenomenology is closer to the Outside The Dream Syndicate sensibility Conrad shared with Faust, reimagined for a single violinist working alone in Tokyo with tape machines. Reissued by Art Into Life in 2013 as Viosphere+ Selected Works 1984-1991 with unreleased material and a booklet, though the 1991 Pico-03 remains the document to have.