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review by 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 Croakert's wonderfully sublime Mystery Sea label - Aionis the Fundament. What is most fascinating about Aionis 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 Aionis the Fundament. On the one hand, it exhibits all the wonderful mysteriousness of a master such as Asthmus Tiechens 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 Aionis the Fundament is now a heavily reverberating curtain of thunderous drones. Highly recommended. |
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