Reviews by Jeremy Keens

SR:001 Lost Time Accident - Age 2 Wonder At
SR:002 Lost Time Accident - Audible Lines
SR:003 Dark Ambient Operators - Ramp Speed
SR:005 Lost Time Accident - Creating Regions

Ampersand Etcetera - 2001_10
http://ampersandetc.virtualave.net/ampersand.html

Staying in Melbourne for a while, In 2001_09 I looked at the Sound Drifting compilation, which included a track Tat Fat Size Temple by Toy Satellite, which is based here (and also has an RMIT connection). Through various means I came across Andrew Garton who is part of Toy Satellite, is also Lost Time Accident, as well himself and a member of other assemblages (he has worked with Stelarc, for instance) and runs Secession - a small-scale venture, with a new LTA album just out Creating Regions. I'll just give a sense of the first three items, as the first album is just now out of print (I bought the last copy), while the second and third Secessions are available for free download either from the home site or MP3.com in the case of Audible Lines (look for Lost Time Accident).

Released in 1998 age 2 wonder at is based on an ever-evolving underscore derived from compositions created in 1982 using a graphical technique (apparently developed by Sykes Rose, an Australian composer) and later Koan: however the pieces don't sound generative on the whole. Cave is a complex electronica piece, swirling synths forming a light bed, with tones, noises, percussive affects skittering over the surface. A nice space piece follows, Crossing, scifi keys, throbbing tones, highwire pings, set somewhere between the stars. Some of the clicking which will feature later appears in Uhm! which clanks and twists dramatically into a secondhalf full of uhmish vocal fragments. Another sample, complete, opens Forget which chitters and sussurates under a Theremin wave, with echoed shouts and fragments. Rumble is much more minimal, dark low sounds travelling over the rumble, with some larger noises (processed voices) entering later, followed by banging and harsher tones. The generative aspect is most evident in Neo Tokyo where samples from the Akira soundtrack appear over an ambient industrial soundscape, and is followed by a brief unnamed piece that acts as a coda, revisiting some of the more minimal rhythm moods. Altogether a very varied and satisfying album that is worth repressing.

Audible Lines is a companion or addendum mini-album to the first disk, and contains five pieces in about 20 minutes. The opening tracks Behind and Chuck use vocal samples processed in the first, fragments of pauses in the second. Behind is fast and furious, fading in and out, percussive, while Chuck places breath intakes, swallows, assonances over a fuzzy pulsing, with intruding heavier noises; a period of cycling beats; a quieter ambience and then finally squeaking bleep loops. Lung-fish is more ambient with a mysterious slowed organ and Thermin over and subtle tweaks in the second half, Swarm erupts in an eponymous sonic cloud then cycles buzzing clicks, and finally Thrust hypnotically pulses and squeaks a slightly modulating loop.

Ramp Speed collects five tracks from a live performance, combining electronic atmospheres, beats and pulses, cordant and discordant synths, effects and other modulations and combinations to create an exciting mix. The first track is a beatdriven feast, while the second builds from some sublime atmospheres into a pulsating Theremin steered rocket ride, shifting and clicking into a phasered fadeout (I must have heard Andrew on the radio when the Grainger Museum reopened, as he wrote a Theremin-based work for it). A short squeaking tonal piece (the T again), before the next opens with pulseclick and woozy synth, followed with a tonal centre and whitenoise end all over a distant voice which cropped up early on. And a final very percussive modulated loop fest that switches into a chopped voice/record electroacoustic shimmer. Well worth downloading, two excellent and varied minialbums, emphasising Garton's ability to move between artistic/academic, beaty and generative works.

And so to the most recent album Creating Regions: it more clearly reflects Garton's interest in generative music and online distribution, through pieces which were inspired by ‘European interest in minimalist electronica' and the contrast between industrial and central regions of Pilzn in the Czech Republic, and which were mainly performed during a netcast. t0 which opens it also suggests the form of minimalism - a bed of popclicks and a pulse underlie the whole track, but they are modulated and manipulated: sometimes the clicks are crisp, others they are squelched and at times seem to fade, similarly the pulse changes density and feel. A squirrl which seems to lie somewhere underneath early on emerges dramatically about half way, and there is a period with dense chattering woobles over the surface, which descends again before the end. There is an even more modulated generative feel to Minus where a taptaptap is looped and echoed to form one element, a pulse grounds it and a wacawaca loop dances around, all tweaked lightly as the track progresses, and highly addictive.

Despite its name Micro is a longer track, centred around a complex polyrhythmic layered clicking which softly changes. An industrial rumble joins in and accompanies for much of the track, and various elements accrete without becoming overwhelming or dense, some fade to allow others in - there is the wacwac from Minus, tones, more clicks, melodic fragments, particularly later. Again you get the feeling that this could go on for ever, presenting different facets. A more contemplative mood is present in Come (yes, generative/minimalism can have moods) as a slower pattering click is echoed and pulsed, with notes weaving through (guitar or synths) and some bubble woobles emerging later. There is a strong development in 45 which starts very minimally and brooding and gets stronger and faster as new elements enter - soft beeping, clattering spatters, a fast D'n'B rhythm - to a dramatic climax.

For me the centrepiece of the album, which is full of strong works, is Golem - something of a journey through the industrial areas that struck Garton. It opens with a sample which sounds like a railway station from its ambience and the tannoy anouncements. Voice samples run throughout this long track as an omnipresent but not always clear undertone. Synth wooshes work in and then a beat (not unlike Autobahn) and we travel through the soundscape, sometimes slowing but always moving: there are varying sights such as burbling or harsh high tones, chitters and light touching tones. But like most journeys, it captures our attention.

Lagoon was written separately to the other tracks, but fits in well as a conclusion as it develops from rapid dancing clicks and a deep driving pulse, adding welling shimmers that gradually emerge as complex whissling sounds, chittering, tonal layers, and pace into an exciting finale to a fascinating album. The strength of the release is its focus - listening to the earlier material and a promo compilation it is obvious that Garton works in a variety of ways and styles, and the first album showed that there isn't a single Lost Time Accident one. And while variety is interesting (the MP3 albums are well worth downloading and the first album is strong enough to keep available) Creating Regions impresses with its intensity.