"Time being time"

Robert Lloyd's new mesmerising and multi-faceted poetic Time being time, a new
ensemble work for 2 sopranos and speaking male voices on mini disc, strings and
percussion, is another example of the composers enduring art. Lloyds large scale
and finely calibrated aural meditation on the metaphysics of time is suggestive
of the artist's continuing inspired exploration of music as a universal art form that
cuts across culture, time and space to speak of our unfolding finitude in a majestic
world of beauty and enigma.

During the live performance of Time being time Lloyd will be mixing the
prerecorded voices against the live sound. This is a vivid example of the composer's
phenomenological penchant for creating music as performance that denotes the
artist's full participation in the in-situ dynamics of his own creation. Further, it also
clearly indicates Lloyd's emerging interest in composing within a multi-media context.

Time being time is predicated on Lloyd's lifelong interest in articulating music as a
Zen-inspired creation of intricate rhythmic suggestiveness. Lloyd, who started his
career as a drummer, became a Proustian voyager of time as an expression of the
manifold dimensions of time. Time, for the composer, initially meant rhythm then it
eventually came to signify rhythmic cycles. A voyage stemming from observing the
face of a clock to the Sanskrit definition as tala (referring to the rhythmic cycles
in the Indian universe) all of Lloyd's oeuvre is based on the idea of playing one
rhythmic cycle against another.

For Time being time Lloyd used as a pivotal philosophical text on time Dogen-Zenji's
treatise on Being Time. This thirteenth century poet/monk was responsible for
bringing Zen from mainland China to Japan. This influential text was overlooked (in a
popular sense) for many centuries, until it became widely known in the fifties with the
Beat generation of American writers, artists and filmmakers. In this specific context,
Lloyd, was influenced by (amongst others) the novelist and naturalist Peter Mathhiesson.

The other seminal text incorporated in Time being time is a fragmentary work of the
pre-Socratic writer philosopher Heraklitos called "Time is a child moving counters
in a board game". It is also interesting to note, that quantum physicists are starting to
confirm Dogen's text as an important philosophical text on the nature of time. Relatedly,
Time being time was also influenced by Glenn Gould's radiophonic works, particularly
The Idea Of North, and the holistic everyday approach adopted by Percy Grainger
to his music as a way of life.

All in all, Time being time as a unique chamber orchestra piece, underlines a new
direction for Lloyd in that it accentuates the notion of current time contextualised
with past time. He has given us another glorious example of his art as it refreshingly
embodies the capacity to astonish us with his sounds of surprise.

John Conomos, June 1999
Program notes for the world premier performance of Time being time
at the Supreme Court Building, Darwin on Sunday 18 July 1999