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"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.

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)

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

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 MAGAZINE issue 257 (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 number 473 week 18
(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)

E / I MAGAZINE ISSUE 6
(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)

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)