Under the Spire
Edmonton-based sound artist Mark Templeton has been quietly eking out his unique musical place for quite some time but he’s always been a difficult figure to situate. At a glance Templeton’s music is ambient warmly textured and bereft of obvious melodic gestures. With Jealous Heart however the sound is atmospheric and distant yet emotionally immediate and cluttered — too busy to be “ambient” and too fragmented to be anything else.
Jealous Heart is Templeton’s most malleable effort yet a punctured tapestry of sounds arranged in oddly melodic patterns. Throughout scraps of sound forms — field recordings found artifacts treated horn phrases — are manipulated to the barest edges of tape spliced and submerged into a cohesive whole. One might even be able to trace the contours of each sound were it not for the murk of intuitive mood that envelops the best moments on the album — like how “Buffalo Coulee” wraps its loops into a gracefully staggered melodic ascension or how “Sinking Heart” clips into disembodied murmurs a smeared emotional resonance caught within the ether.
Jealous Heart is a deeply nuanced subtly cluttered collection of faded sounds; at points it reminds me of recent efforts from Leyland Kirby (The Caretaker) but with a heavier emphasis on the physical manipulation of sounds themselves and not merely atmosphere which gives Templeton’s newest effort its own distinct presence and emotional resonance. A patient worthwhile listen.
