MYSTERY SEA 12 | Dale Lloyd | [Aionios The Fundament]
ARTWORK
front 
back
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
-
"This fundament is absolute, yet manifests in that which is perceived
as being imperfect. This fundament is immutable, yet manifests in all
that changes. This fundament is impalpable, yet manifests in the imagination.
This fundament is immeasurable, yet manifests in that which can be measured.
This fundament is silent, yet all that can be heard manifests from this
silence."
-
Dale Lloyd, January 2004
PRESS RELEASE
Dale Lloyd
is an experienced US sound artist with a deep interest in environmental
recordings that he promotes passionately through his own and/OAR label...
Besides, he's also the originator of the field recordings based PHONOGRAPHY
compilation series...
-
Looking into the convergences between micro and macro aural events,
Dale dissects and transmutes his materials to disclose an innermost
essence...
-
"Aionios The Fundament" is his fluidic ode
to an underlying evasive permanence...
In this gently sizzling sea, waving filaments, veins of salt, are all
flowing back to some secret heart...
an engulfed receptacle where drips a thin rain of ageless murmurs...
From the opened shrine appears a tracery of filets, spreading like so
many paths to apprehend our surroundings from a different angle...
-
"Aionios The Fundament" is an incursion behind
and beyond structures where all the hidden, subtle forces coalesce...
a place of contemplation and enhanced perception,
and ultimately, an amazing new starting point...
TRACKS
01.
saline crystals born of mother solutions
02. adamite effluvia
03. a degree more corporeal than air
04. a degree less corporeal than water
05. this sea, our lodestone
LENGTH
47'55
REVIEWS
MICROVIEW v11|TJ
Norris
Rated
: 4 out of 5
Dale Lloyd's field
recordings for Aionios The Fundament have an instant
density in layers of unfiltered, hollow, organic chambers. With the
radiance of mercury swimming through an endless pipe, and cover art
that projects the shadowy depths of the murky unknown Lloyd
is reaching deep into his psyche to offer something not unlike a pearl
in his very own shell. Poetically dissonant, "Saline Crystals Born
of Mother Solutions" rustles and streams, croons and gurgles.
Lloyd is more a choreographer of the elements than a straight
shot musician, which makes this seem like an outsider's perspective
- one akin to a geologist perhaps. This recording reminds me of some
live work I have seen by fellow field recording artist Seth Nehil. Over
five tracks and 48 minutes Lloyd takes us to atomic
places formerly hinted at by Wolfgang Voight and Carsten Nicolai. His
sublime rendition of "Adamite Effluvia" is a daydream inducing
headtrip. Sound as satellite. "Aionios The Fundament"
creates a sensual meditation, cleansing your mind, eradicating the incidental,
drenching it, quenching it.
microview
Touching
Extremes |Massimo Ricci
Preserving
the essence and the spirit of his field recordings, Lloyd
showers our ears with elemental beauties, incorporating concrete sounds
and expert processing in five austere, almost sacral assemblages. Ominous
landscapes, made wet by sapient dissolvences, alternate with hisses
and crackles seemingly out of some extraterrestrial backdrop, while
darkness and light find their correspondence in a mutual respect. Time
fathoms our chaotic life disposition, disregarding our imperfections
to fog our nerves in a gauzy perceptivity: this is a vast and involving
soundworld, where changes and mutations occur very slowly. We're given
all the necessary tools to adapt to this well developed set of spectral
experiences.
touching extremes
VITAL WEEKLY 412|Frans
De Waard
Aionios The Fundament
: Dale Lloyd shouldn't be too unknown by now. He has various releases out, mostly
on CDR, but also as MP3 on the internet ; and his interest lies mostly
in using field recordings. On the ever so nice Mystery Sea label
he has a release with five tracks using treated field recordings from
2002-2003. Upon hearing this music, it's hard to tell what the nature
of these recordings are, as Lloyd gives
them a lot of sound treatment. All of the sounds are treated beyond
recognition and warped up, forming a mystery of their own. Lloyd
keeps clearly in mind for which label he is working, as the whole thing
sounds very much in spirit of the previous ambient related works on
Mystery Sea. My best guess is that Lloyd treats a lot
of different water recordings, from rain to the kettle boiling and beyond.
Five pieces of carefully treated stuff that bare a lot of tension underneath
(such as the wind-like sounds in "A Degree Less Corporeal Than
Water" which is like a big storm coming), which makes into a very
powerful and one of the best Mystery Sea and Dale Lloyd
releases so far.
vital weekly
WIND
& WIRE
|Ben Fleury-Steiner
For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Dale Lloyd,
let me take this review as an opportunity to introduce you to a wonderful
artist. For the past three years, as owner of the and/OAR label, Lloyd
has led a burgeoning community of interesting environmental and field
recording artists. I suspect to be hearing and thus writing a lot about
and/OAR artists for future editions of Wind and Wire. But first I turn
to Lloyd's latest - a non-and/OAR release from Daniel
Crokaert's wonderfully sublime Mystery Sea label - Aionios the
Fundament. What is most fascinating
about Aionios the Fundament is the way that each track
expands sonically - that is, with little repetition - from one into
the next. This is a work of very subtle detail that promises discovery
with each listen. Beginning with the soft stuttering cadence and water-through-a-barrel
hum of "Saline Crystals Born of Mother Solutions,"
Lloyd, in effect, splashes a blank canvas with a clear, watery
and whispery alchemical mixture. This is indeed the "birth"
of Lloyd's fundament - the barest structural details
- from which this "aionic" embryo will grow. As the watery
echo of swirls come closer into the audio field the track ends and,
sure enough, track two, "Adamite Effluvia," takes on a kind
of maturation from its predecessor - that is to say, it gains a thicker
layer of pulsing flesh. It is remarkable that this recording was constructed
entirely from field recordings obtained primarily from sound sculptor
extraordinaire, K.M. Krebs. Lloyd's mixing of different
sounds and his subtle volume adjustments create a truly rich and absorbing
listening experience. "Adamite Effluvia" is a clear example
of how Lloyd's creative use of panning in the recording
process can utterly build on a sound's overall aesthetic - in this case,
a slow and circular tumbling of cans bathed in a static effervescence
that provides surprise with its sudden and abrupt ending. It
is difficult to find a clear reference point when considering Aionios
the Fundament. On the one hand, it exhibits all the wonderful
mysteriousness of a master such as Asmus Tietchens or the provocative
and multi-layered soundings of newer artists like Wilt or Heath Yonaites,
but Lloyd is more inclined to a slower, more patient
unfolding of sounds than most experimentalists. Tracks 3 and 4 explore
the corporeality of air and liquid respectively. Once again
Lloyd demonstrates his fascination with sounds at the audio
interstices of white noise and ambience. Both tracks extend into open
drone canvases - track 4, "A Degree Less Corporeal than Water,"
surges with even louder washes of breathy, shimmering rapids than its
airy predecessor. Underscoring the flow of water, we hear additional
layers of sporadic pops and pulses, as if hydrogen atoms are on the
very cusp of becoming a liquid-one with lingering oxygen that is just
out of reach. When we are finally taken into the actuality of the sea
on "This Sea, Our Lodestone" the once embryonic mixture of
saline crystals that began Aionios the Fundament is
now a heavily reverberating curtain of thunderous drones. Highly recommended.
wind
& wire
AMPERSAND|Jeremy
Keens
Aionios
The Fundament: Phonographer Dale Lloyd (one
of the Union Of Seattle, and compiler of the Phonography compilations)
composes Aionios The Fundament (MS12). The first track
(Saline Crystals Born Of Mother Solutions) -- is almost half the whole
disc -- opens with water ventish, with a deep pulsing bass (which is
a feature throughout), lapping and rolling, voicey and organic, shifting
to hissing rainy shimmers, rattling with under-organ, stutters to pulsing
as a drone gathers, rains and hisses in. The next track shifts from
a whistly high scraping-scream voice, into a vinyl-loop crackle with
a hint of voice ; the whole being quite ethereal.
Oceanic is the ebb and flow of A Degree More Corporeal Than Air, layering
a flowing scrape-whistle, and slowly decaying glitter-cycle over a very
deep rumble that sounds like a mic in the wind, with the hiss more left
and the rumble, a right-channel response, into a dense washing (is it
a wave or a train?) with the rumble and then a jiggery skitter. Finally,
the majestic beauty of This Sea, Our Lodestone, high ringing tones,
often voicey, over deep bass, vents to a long
and vibrous ending.
A lovely album.
ampersand
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