MARK TEMPLETON - Jealous Heart

Mark Templeton is one of those names who are highly sought-after and acclaimed in the "in" circles of worlds like theatre and film, yet snubbed by most on the record industry side. A multi-instrumentalist of a thousand faces, for nearly a decade now devoted to seeking common ground between traditional folk melodies and the most avant frontiers of experimental electronics, he's managed to land commissions for some of the most important events in Canada and beyond (above all festivals like MUTEK and Unsound), succeeding in bringing to a wider audience a musical proposal that's nonetheless always marked by an unusual accessibility.

In recent years, also thanks to his partnership with director and audiovisual artist Aaron Munson, his music has evolved, leaving behind the pastoral textures dear to the latest Mountains to reach a purely atmospheric dimension, placing itself firmly within the lane of electro-acoustic ambient. In this sense, this new "Jealous Heart" – which also marks his first outing away from the trusty Anticipate Records, in favour of British label Under The Spire – serves as a consecration of this new musical identity of his, keeping the bond with the "naturalistic" traits of his sound through field recordings and acoustic guitar, while handing the center stage to quiet electronic flows and hazy disturbances.

Ambient-glitch is therefore the key word for opening the doors to this extremely elegant little primer, as shown by the concrete funambulism of "Once Were Down", the haunted whirlpools of "Kingdom Key" and the hazy trance in full BJ Nilsen style of the brief "Matinee". Elsewhere, it's instead purely electro-acoustic fragments that rise above the synthetic murmurs, as in the sinister echoes of "A Distant Hum" (somewhat Necks, somewhat Brandlmayr) and in the genuinely concrete split of "Straits", though it's once again the purest and most passionate ambient watercolours that hit the mark hardest, like the sweet overture of "Buffalo Coulee", the chamber symphony of "Sinking Heart" and the dark vibrating mass of the galloping "Flat3".

With this release, out only on Lp, Mark Templeton ties together the threads pursued in recent years, fully completing his metamorphosis into a top-tier exponent of ambient glitch. His attempt to unite the two parallel dimensions of dysfunction and electro-acoustic avant-garde hits the target without, truth be told, being too surprising. "Jealous Heart" is a work conceived and curated down to the smallest detail, polished to perfection and born with no intention of surprising or revolutionizing the sonic canon it draws from. What keeps the album from reaching memorable heights is a lack of freshness and bite, shortcomings that nonetheless don't prevent it from being a quality listen, and anything but heavy going.

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13/04/2013