Albums
John Luther Adams
Félicia Atkinson
Cardopusher
Matt Christensen
Enrico Coniglio
Coniglio / Under the Snow
Dakota Suite
Deadbeat
Deepchord
Vladislav Delay Quartet
DJ W!LD
Dreissk
Mark E
Marcus Fjellström
Fourcolor
Fovea Hex
Ákos Garai
Kreng
Lerosa
Machinedrum
Mem1 + Stephen Vitiello
Message to Bears
Novi_sad
Rick Reed
Alexander Rishaug
Jannick Schou
Secret Cinema
Seven Saturdays
Sleeps in Oysters
Sound People
Strom Noir
Ryan Teague
thisquietarmy
thisquietarmy + Yellow6
Amon Tobin
Alexander Turnquist
Damian Valles
Vetrix
Simon Whetham
Winterlight
Compilations / Mixes
Brownswood Electr*c 2
Laid Compilation
Prosumer
EPs
David Åhlén
Arkhonia
Bad Sector
Bengalfuel
Wil Bolton
Ed Cooke
Davis / Kleefstras
Detroit: DeepConstructed
d'incise
Final Cut
Gang Colours
Richard A Ingram
Pfirter / Dadub
Nils Quak
Rhythm Baboon
Rumpistol
Mark Templeton
Damian Valles
Josh Varnedore
Mark Templeton:
Scotch Heart
Sweat Lodge Guru
If anything, Mark Templeton's music would appear to have grown increasingly experimental, even fractured over the past half-decade or so. After transplanting himself to Montreal for a couple of years, Templeton is back in Edmonton toiling in his alchemical lab, intent on giving form to heavily processed and ghostly lullabies of the kind captured on his cassette release Scotch Heart.
Its four tracks careen down dusty corridors crowded with disembodied voices and dotted with duststorms of crackle and thrum. A wooziness pervades the material and gives its sounds and voices an undulating, waterlogged quality, an effect heard most pronouncedly when a singing voice slows to an indecipherable crawl during “Tailored Buildings”; in tandem with the vocal's croak, the inclusion of equally lugubrious guitar playing turns the funereal lament into a requiem of some diseased kind. “Organ Moods” ripples in slow-motion like time-lapse footage of a sickly sewage system within which decaying guitar shards and other murky materials float, occasionally bobbing to the surface before disappearing below. “Veiled Images” conjures a musty gothic cathedral filled with writhing noises, smeared abstractions, and layers of shuddering guitars, until a boy's choir emerges amidst static pops to bring the cathedral connection into sharper focus.
Scotch Heart clearly has more in common with Philip Jeck's submerged sound world than Fennesz's or that of any other axe-wielder, for that matter. On the basis of the cassette's material, it would seem that Templeton has travelled far and seen much since the guitar-based soundscaping of his full-length debut Standing on a Hummingbird (Anticipate) appeared four years ago.
June 2011