"Good, eerie ambient industrial music is rare outside of sci-fi or horror films, and even then it is often blasted too loudly for nuance. Enter Held to Account, whose soundscapes are creepy, deep, and trippy. This self-titled third release is full of dark corners, greasy echoes, and ghostly metallic shenanigans. That makes this a hidden gem worth seeking out.
Self-described “tone scientist” Pat Gillis (Northern Machine) is the brainchild behind this unsettling dream world. The mix of lush ambient with noisy interruptions provide the foundation for these ten tracks, with some like “Coal Vermin” and “Rasl” using the noise to jarring effect. The drone is also present in the title track and on “Miasmanaut,” the latter of which arguably is the epitome of this sound. Also powerful and disturbing are “Caul” and the closer, “Altimiter.”
Held to Account builds off of Ligeti and Lustmord and takes the trip deeper and richer. This is a soundtrack for an astronaut floating away into eventual oblivion, but while the oxygen holds out, the experience is as awe-inspiring as it is terrifying. Frank Poole (2001), this record is for you. Gillis and his clutch of live and recorded sound evoke wonder and unease, a poetic ambient that deserves much love if you can get a hold of a copy."
Mike Wood, Fox Digitalis


"Music by TL0741, also known as Pat Gillis (of Northern Machine - what do you expect?) has been reviewed before, such as "Back To Minus" (Vital Weekly 641) and "Magnetic Injuries" (Vital Weekly 715) and I have been lucky to see him play live on his modular synth beast, long before that was "hip" among the cosmonauts. On this new release he continues what he set out before: play relative short improvisations on his modular beast thing, in which the cosmos not completely absent, but on the other hand doesn't play a big role either. Noise on the contrary is never far away, lurking its head around the corner occasionally. The pieces here have a more or less sketch like character, but no doubt that's because of the improvised way this is played and recorded - perhaps being excerpts of bigger pieces. But its neither a complete, all out noise release and has various moments of introspection, such as in "Caul", with its threatening undercurrent and shimmering melody. Like before I quite enjoyed the music, even when not every moment was equally strong, and this time, the album clocks in at just under forty minutes, so the ideal length for such experiments."
Frans deWaard, Vital Weekly


"Moving swiftly away from shimmer into the land of drone and noise we find three recent releases from HC3 Music. First up, TL0741 present “Held To Account”, ten improvised live tracks intended to be heard at high volume using electronic instruments as a way to remove harmony and rhythm. To a large extent they succeed with their purpose, although the human mind being what it is, you begin to find harmonies and rhythms buried in the sound, the brain filling in the gaps meaning each person interprets the pieces differently. However you hear it, the music is rich and fulfilling, each one similar yet individual, with Pat Gillis, the musician responsible, using the full sonic spectrum, the bass sounds being particularly effective to my ears, with “Understream”, “Coal Vermin” and “Interference Pattern 1” winning the day for me."
Simon Lewis, Terrascope Online


"This is the living definition of enigmatic -- ten tracks of vaguely ambient sound, snatches of muted dissonance, and strange noises bleating around the edges. The third release by the esteemed tone scientist Pat Gillis (also of Northern Machine) is a series of textured soundscapes built on layers of drone, noise, glitch sounds, ominous rumbling, and other forms of sonic effluvia; the tracks drift by like movements in a soundtrack to a deep-space documentary, and the album's forward movement is determined not only by a wide variety of textures and tonal approaches, but also a keen ear for dynamics. The album's sound and its flowing nature remind me a lot of the early isolationist movement, especially the early work of Lull and Lustmord; it's hard to believe such dark and mysterious sounds can be generated with just some synths, efx, and a tape recorder. The tracks are a mix of live and studio recordings, although the nature of the sound makes it pretty much impossible to tell which tracks are which. Some of the more droning tracks like "Bossa" are in the cosmic drone territory currently being explored by Sky Burial, and Gillis shares Michael Page's compositional skills -- the sequencing of the tracks is key to everything here, providing the album with more structure than you might find immediately apparent. He also shares Page's affinity for spooky noises, which certainly doesn't hurt. Immerse yourself in the cloud nebula and let the mystic drones turn on switches in your skull you never even knew were there."
RKF, One True Dead Angel


"I used to think we’d all have numbers instead of names in the future, but now that seems a positively benign fate compared to what’s clearly going to become of us as we are ground to mulch by the inexorable wheels of monopoly capitalism. Our man Gillis may not share my bleak outlook on our existence, but his sonorous digital groanings and writhings on this outing do not betoken the mind of a fully contented man. He uses synths and tape manipulations like he was kneading bread dough mixed with solid concrete, trying to tame the slimy white filth much as the scuba diver wrestles with the vicious octopus. No root notes, no repetitions, no pulsations, no recognisable shape to these livid slabs of murk – just slices of menacing viscera torn straight from the flanks of a gigantic ox-like creature. Gillis performs everything live in one take, and regards his work as “unsettled dream music”. Purchase and spin this hallucinator and a palpable and unignorable presence will pour into your listening space like five-and-twenty unwanted fat ghosts, slobbering at the jowls."
Ed Pinsent, THE SOUND PROJECTOR