Composed during Winter/Spring 2003 (tracks 2 & 6 Summer / 7 Fall 2003) in SLC, UT.

"Urban beats, random microtonal injections, and elegantly repeated melodies that exist as little more than call signs are shuffled convincingly into structures of remarkable subtlety and strength. Working alone out of Salt Lake City, Stevens has thrown open the sensitive space that exists between the click and the structured beat and made a quiet success of navigating the difference."

-Ken Hollings, The Wire Issue 242


"Lapsed’s style is one of crystalline clarity – subtle, yet never one to shy away from its qualities – a blend of clicking, whirring IDM beats, soulful electronica melodies and droning, evolving atmospherics. Sitting somewhere between Cordell Klier and Larvae in the Ad Noiseam roster, his style is wholly contemporary, encompassing a whole variety of electronic sub-genres. As a result, it is an album that can be enjoyed on several levels – it is equally at home as a relaxing listen, letting the atmospherics and soft melodies wash over you, as it is as an intense headphone listen, fully appreciating the glitch trickery and intricacies of rhythm; or a down-tempo beat-driven journey.

From the liner notes, it appears that “Twilight” was written over a very short period, which has certainly helped the coherence of the album. All the tracks share a similarly frozen atmosphere and familiar processes keep cropping up throughout the 13 untitled tracks. What are noticeable are the tracks that were added later to the original demo material – while most have a wintery air, track 6 has a warm, sun-drenched feel to it that is complemented by its up-beat, often straight-ahead, rhythms; track 7, however, captures the liminal beauty of autumn – opposing warm melodies with cold soundscapes and mid-paced beats. An album for all seasons? Perhaps, but it is hard to gauge what Lapsed’s intentions were for the album as it almost totally lacks context. The only thing that guides us towards its intent is the lush photography of vegetation that graces the jewel case - it could be that Lapsed simply wishes to reclaim warmth and life into his music and set it aside from cold, harsh industrial electronics. If that is so, he has succeeded, as “Twilight” is one of the most “human” albums to emerge from the “glitch-hop” genre.

Soulful, human, organic are all epithets that immediately spring from Lapsed’s music, despite the often distant and impersonal nature of the genre. He has managed to capture the spirit of nature in all its phases and translate that almost perfectly into his chosen medium. This is not an album to be dismissed as another Beefcake wannabe or an aimless exercise in computer trickery – it demands attention and exudes a whole wealth of emotion in return. This is recommended as much to fans of Mokira and Autechre as it is to followers of the Ad Noiseam sound."

Gavin Lees

07.03.2k4


Igloo Mag:
"The Lapsed filter passes over these disparate sources and spits out an attention to rhythm and pacing, a penchant for atmosphere, and a delicate hand moving across the glitch underpinnings of the electronic landscape. As the tracks are untitled, the warp of Twilight comes off as a seamless journey, a single shot arced across a pinpricked heaven. This is a transmission of the night sky as recorded by a slow-moving radio telescope, the buzz and hiss of distant hot suns sparking and foaming in electrostatic fury.

.... For those who like the beats, the glitches and the ambiance, it’s all here for you in Twilight. Recommended."


Industrial NatioN #20 review


"Lapsed are located in the nether world between rationality and emotion; neither completely steeped in the abysmal melodramatics of dark ambient nor autistically technical enough to pass for pedigree clicks’n’cuts. As usual, the hooks are carefully hidden in the details. It clicks and stutters with playful abandon aside a light-handed groove. While one minute apparently following the saturated minimalism along the reduced rhythm tangents defined by the Raster Noton rostor, Jason Stevens’ music quickly embraces fragments of melody, sound drifts or sampled acoustic instruments to counter the mathematical feel with musical warmth. The second of the altogether untitled tracks for instance could very well be a Dead Hollywood Stars tune with its lonely twang of a country/western guitar. And I mean this is a compliment, not an accusation. The juggling of stylistic ingredients is the biggest asset of this Salt Lake City native. Extolling zero degree otherworldliness, but rhythmically grooving and packed with tonal warmth, Twilight is a perfect electronica hybrid setting itself firmly apart from the many generic Beefcake/Gridlock imitators. Lapsed’s rasping and puckering sound aesthetic captivates through its balance of ostentatious electronic technology and nonchalant soundtrack timbre. Furbished with a remix of the like-minded Displacer, Ad Noiseam starts off its 2004 spring season collection with trademark verve and sense for quality. A very strong debut." [Till TM]

"Lapsed is 25-year-old music-store employee Jason Stevens of Salt Lake City, whose debut album is a triumph of out-there atmospherics. Veering between the darkly ambient and the punishingly percussive, these 13 (all untitled) tracks conspire to a strain of clinical, yet darkly engaging, glitch-tronica. If most of what passes for "soundscape" music amounts to little more than the soundtrack to the fixed window-stare of a high-speed journey, then Lapsed is reaching for outer space, decorating his glacial, galactic drones with a frazzled staccato static. There's an immediately grabbing weightlessness to this music, which persists even throughout the riotous distorted rhythms of the album's third act.

Much of this album's curious loftiness comes from the eerily somnambulant synth-pad hums and discernibly creepy drones that ebb and flow beneath the frantic pops, glitches, and crackles. Pushed for comparisons, Autechre's crispness springs to mind on tracks 8 and 11, while there's a curious emotional distance to much of this music and a perfectionist gravitas that recalls the films of Stanly Kubrick. In truth, however, Lapsed transcends easy comparisons, stretching a seemingly vast sonic canvas while somehow marking every sound as his own. Gripping interstellar stuff."
-Allan Harrison
Grooves issue #14