a19

Track List:

01. Semper
02. Magnesian Recumbit

"Semper is Alluvial's first release of 2005 and is co-released with the
and/OAR label. Seattle-based composer Dale Lloyd has collaborated in the
past with people such as Yannick Dauby and Michael Northam, and has had
work released by labels such as Bremsstrahlung Recordings, Staalplaat
and Sirr.ecords. For the past 5 years, Lloyd has played a quiet but strong role
in bringing new life to the notion of 'environmental recordings as sound art'
(or "Phonography") with the highly regarded compilations produced for
Phonography.org, as well as other projects and activities.

The first piece entitled 'Semper', is mostly a quiet and contemplative work,
yet it contains sprawling builds from near silent ebbs and flows to
thunderous crescendos. Also heard are delicate field recordings and found
objects transformed and woven into intricate electronic tapestries. The
second and shorter piece titled 'Magnesian Recumbit' is a slowly building
ambient work with a unique sense of melancholy that makes for a perfect
ending.

Surely, it is one of the strongest works to come from both Lloyd and Alluvial."
(Kevin Wienke - Alluvial Recordings)

"For me, Semper basically illustrates a series of self-searching questions
(with subtle epiphanies) followed by a somewhat enigmatic resolve or
'answer', of which I believe we have all encountered in our lives in one way or
another." (Dale Lloyd)

Reviews
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Smallfish (July 2006)
Dale Lloyd, owner of and/OAR, has put together a delicious CD of found
sound / field recordings / environmental sounds with some truly delightful
processing. The kind of thing that I could get really bogged down in
describing when, in essence, it's the kind of work that you absolutely need to
hear for yourself to appreciate. There are moments here that would certainly
not be out of place on 12k and there are other moments that are pure
atmospheric noise. A superb and very engaging CD that should easily
appeal to fans of Non Visual Objects, Richard Chartier and Steve Roden.
(Mike Oliver)

E / I Magazine (Winter / Spring 2006)
Co-released with Alluvial, Semper's two recombinant environmental
recordings are specimens of Dale Lloyd's fealty to the art of phonography as
an act of both documentary preservation and mimetic creation. The title
composition, a daisy chain of discrete vignettes, arrives wrapped in
sandpaper-and-rice textures soon shuffling the listener into habitats humid,
convulsive and weather-stained. Semper's atmospheres retain traces of this
same gusty front throughout the life of the piece, drenching its landscapes in
moods reminiscent of Lloyd-collaborators like Kim Cascone and Francisco
Lopez in hue and timescale. Dynamic controls and a gift for tone and color
are Lloyd's strengths, but even at 33 minutes the muted, clustered
frequencies and affected gravities wear thin, winded beneath the weight of
too much dawn-or-dusk syncretism, too many mechanical commas to
support its duration. Taken as a compendium of grey days and unpopulated
prairies, it remains a well-made and engaging listen that, nevertheless,
leaves one positively aching for the occasional sunnier clime.
(William S. Fields)

Paris Transatlantic (October 2005)
Thirty-three minutes and forty-four seconds of assertive and beautifully
cultivated microscopic detail and great assembling mastery; Semper easily
gets my vote as one of the best records of 2005. Dale Lloyd, who's revealing
himself as a very talented composer in many ways (check out his recent
Amalgam on Conv.Net Lab) brings together "field recordings, electronic
sounds, toy xylophone, old coins and other metallic and found objects" in two
intoxicating soundscapes in which thunder, rain, birds and insects fuse
unconventionally with the eternal subsonics of a distant earthquake rumble
in waves whose depth is felt under the muscle tissue. One can only imagine
the painstaking process necessary to place every single attribute in the right
light, but such meticulous attention to detail pays high dividends, as the
slo-mo radiance coming out of the speakers throbs with vital resonance
that's almost painful to experience. (Massimo Ricci)

Wire (July 2005)
Recapitulating the lowercase ethos previously established by Steve Roden
and John Hudak, Dale Lloyd manipulates delicate textural events and subtle
field recordings for a poetic sensibility that privileges passages of silence
and a Zen-like attentiveness to sounds which might otherwise go unnoticed.
This album is less of a cohesive body of work, more of a series of loosely
related sketches that emerge from Lloyd's refined use of empty space. He
runs everything through a variety of DSP techniques, resulting in plasticity
countering the organic sounds of birds, insects, and closely observed
gestures from old coins and other metallic found objects. The crackling ether
from controlled feedback also grafts itself onto those natural elements,
further distancing them from their original context. In all of their poetic
restraint and well executed detail, the sounds of Semper beg for a larger
narrative context to be fully realised. (Jim Haynes)

Vital Weekly (May 2005)
In the world of field recordings, and the music made thereof, the name Dale
Lloyd should not be unknown, even when he so far released his work on
MP3 and CDRs. This is I believe his first 'real' CD. It consists of the lengthy
title piece and the shorter 'Magnesian Recumbit'. The sound sources listed
as the usual 'field recordings, electronic sounds, toy xylophone, old coins
and other metallic and found objects'. It's hard to trace back the origin of the
field recordings, save for some of the water and insect sounds, but most of
the times, the computer is working overtime to process all the sounds into a
nice ambient glitch mass. Densely layered with the microphone quite close
to the objects (a trick of trade Lloyd shares with people like Yannick Dauby or
MNortham). The combination of the sometimes warm, natural sounds and
the somewhat colder electronic sounds work in quite a nice way. 'Semper' is
divided in smaller parts, each with it's distinct, own character. 'Magnesian
Recumbit' is more of a drone piece, with loops and layers of the metallic
objects, working in a trance-like way. The two pieces have a rather pastoral
feel to them, and sound quite solemn. Two great works, pity the CD is rather
short at that. (Frans de Waard)