NEW WILDERNESS COOKBOOK + NEW TRACKS

I’ve recently acquired some new gear. My folks went garage sale hunting and picked up – 2 accordions, a Yamaha DD50E Digital Drum Kit and a hammered dulcimer. As well I picked up a Briscoe Harmony Chord organ that I had in storage. With all this new gear I’ve been working on some new material. Starting to think about the direction of my new album, but more so just trying to record as much as I can.

I also came across this great cookbook that I had purchased a while back.

Wilderness Cooking 1

Wilderness Cooking 2

THE UNITER INTERVIEW

October 7th 2009

Shatter it and pick up the pieces

Edmonton musician brings his beautiful, electro-acoustic experimentations to the University of Winnipeg

by Aaron Epp (Managing Editor)

Edmonton musician Mark Templeton will incorporate music he’s never played live before into his set in Winnipeg at Send + Receive.

When Edmonton-based musician Mark Templeton moved to Montreal for a year-and-a-half, he thought he would make a lot of music while living in the French city. He was wrong.

“My time in Montreal was great, but at the same time, I found it a little more difficult, personally, to become motivated to create,” Templeton said by phone last week.

“I was a little surprised by that because I kind of expected that I would have more creative output, being in such a vibrant city.

“But that’s the thing, I think: It’s easy to take in a lot and coast, and not [create] a lot yourself in a city like Montreal.”

A renowned, experimental, electro-acoustic musician, Templeton’s latest release is a 12” record he put out this past summer called Sea Point. The album features three songs from his latest CD, Inland, as well as three new songs.

Templeton will use those new songs for the first time ever as the basis of an improvisational live performance when he appears at the University of Winnipeg’s Eckhardt-Gramatte Hall on Wednesday, Oct. 14 as part of the 11th annual Send + Receive festival of sound art.

The University of Winnipeg’s CKUW 95.9 FM is co-presenting the performance in celebration of the campus radio station’s 10th anniversary.

I kind of expected that I would have more creative output, being in such a vibrant city. But that’s the thing, I think: It’s easy to take in a lot and coast, and not [create] a lot yourself in a city like Montreal.

– Mark Templeton, musician

- See Mark Templeton Wedneday, Oct. 14 at the Eckhardt-Gramatte Hall at the U of W
- USO Project + Selfish (Italy) and Ezekiel Honig (U.S.) will also perform
- Tickets are $12
- Doors open at 7 p.m., show begins at 8 p.m.
- Send + Receive: A Festival of Sound is on Oct. 13-17

Story Links

• Fields Awake
• Send + Receive

He first garnered attention with his debut release, 2007’s Standing on a Hummingbird.

Using acoustic instruments like guitar, banjo and violin as the basis of his songs, Templeton records various parts before chopping them up and splicing them together on his computer. The result is beautiful, atmospheric music that has been described as “pastoral” but also “painterly.”

“On Hummingbird I chose to hide the sources a little more,” Templeton said of the difference between that release and Inland. “After it came out, I was a little more comfortable with allowing the instruments and the sound sources to breathe and come to the surface.”

Another difference is the use of voice on Inland. Templeton would record a very unpolished vocal track “then shatter it and pick up the remnants and pieces and put them in a new order” to create new sounds.

Templeton’s works have been commissioned by organizations of contemporary dance, film and audiovisual disciplines. At times, Edmonton-based experimental filmmaker aAron Munson’s visuals have accompanied his live performances.

Earlier this year, the duo’s ongoing collaboration resulted in the release of M. Templeton & aA. Munson: Acre Loss on CD and DVD. The project features visuals by both men, set to music created by both men.

“Acre Loss and Inland are both kind of foreshadowing the direction I’m moving into,” Templeton said.

“I’m interested in seeing what happens in the next couple years – what recorded works will sound like and how they relate to Acre Loss and Inland – because I feel it will be a balance of the two.”

This article appeared in Volume 64, Number 06 of The Uniter, published October 8th 2009.

FOXY DIGITALIS REVIEW

Mark Templeton “Inland”

Anticipate

Gently soaring drones, lifted higher with strong drums. Modified guitar chords interspersed with softened Aphex Twin twitches, and the wordless croons of Sigur Ros, the artist utilizing his voice as its own instrument to guide a song. Electro-acoustic ambient, fuzzy and warped, too warm to be called contemporary but without the faux-detachment of postmodern music. Quite beautiful at times, demanding your attention, each element somehow perfectly cohesive. The last track, “Beginnings,” is really the strongest, giving the listener a dreamy, rattling send-off. 9/10 – April Larson (7 October, 2009)

OMG REVIEW OF SEA POINT

Sea Point review on OMG Vinyl.

I had been feverishly waiting for Mark Templeton’s latest record, Inland, to come out on vinyl.  It never did, but this 12″ is definitely the next best thing.  “Sea Point” features three songs from Inland, plus three brand new ones.  Templeton plays beautiful, guitar-based ambient music.  It gets a bit glitchy in parts, and even has vocals sometimes, but it usually stays pretty squarely in the “drones n’ tones” category.  This was produced in a sparse edition of 300, and only costs $10.  Visit AnticipateRecordings.com.

33 DEGREES

Sill recent:

And another (in Dutch):

EXCLAIM!! REVIEW AND INTERVIEW

I’ve been meaning to post this, but just haven’t gotten around to it. I recently did a short interview w/ Eric Hill from Exclaim!

Mark Templeton Inland By Eric Hill Just a few months ago, Mark Templeton released the wonderful Acre Loss, a collaboration with video artist (and fellow Albertan) AA Munson that brought together sounds of the quotidian, nature and music into aural landscapes. On Inland, Templeton sticks mostly to the indoors and guitars, with occasional percussion, to create an equally expansive but more immediately musical work. Tracks develop from simple figures or drones, which are digitally manipulated, or melodic fragments that are recombined to form dreamlike approximations of songs. Album opener “At Your Feet” introduces both schemas quite nicely. “Oak” has bowed strings, masses of digital blips, like popping soap bubbles, and Templeton’s wordless vocals haunting the tree branches. His layered voice is key to the development of “Sleep in Front Of,” a track also notable for longish sections of untreated guitar and drums rather than the synaptic buzz of micro-edits Templeton tends to favour. Those jump-cuts dominate tracks like “Seam,” sizzling like an electric net set atop a swampy pond. Unlike pop, which has the power to recall distinct times and places, this music, with its omissions and overstrikes of melody, effectively creates new connections across time and place, and gets at the deeper meanings between them. There appears to be some tension between description and abstraction in your music. That is exactly what I am trying to accomplish: the balance between description and abstraction. If there is strong emotion throughout my music, images will come about naturally. I do not produce my works based on an image that I have seen or imagined. These images reveal themselves as the music triggers different emotions or memories. Is the rigorous editing your favourite part of making an album? It can be but at times, it tends to be a tedious exercise that is more exhausting than playing the guitar. Nonetheless, while editing I feel as though I stumble upon new ideas, ideas that otherwise would not have been discovered if I had not meticulously arranged the pieces. Has the move to Montreal had any impact on your creative process? Yes, most definitely. In the past, much of my inspiration came from a sense of isolation, as I was living in Northern Canada. Driving through the prairies, seeing open fields while travelling from one isolated town to another. While living in Montreal, the things that I am influenced by are more the people and the architecture — a different kind of landscape. (Anticipate)

ANTICIPATE MIX FOR DOWNLOAD

Ezekiel Honig recently mixed a number of tracks from the Anticipate catalog and featured it as a free download. Download his mix for free here.

ZOOBIZARRE LIVE SET

Live set from Zoobizarre, Montreal on May 24, 2009.

LIVE SESSION W/ JOSHUE OTT

Mark Templeton: Music
Joshue Ott: superDraw visuals

live session recorded 2009-06-25

SEA POINT 12″

You can pre-purchase your copy of Sea Point.

Sea Point takes three tracks from Templeton’s Inland album, exposing them to vinyl for the first time, and includes three new tracks which are exclusive to this release. The album closer reverses and sees a fitting beginning here, as it’s namesake implies, becoming the opener on the A1 side and setting the tone for the remaining pieces on this EP. The new tracks on Sea Point were made right after finishing Inland, and they continue to exhibit the subtlety and fuzzy, crackly acoustic-based processes, sheering themselves of extraneous parts and leaving delicate strums and echoing backgrounds of abstracted phrases. While they further the themes and approach, they can be heard as almost the trails of the larger work, the resonating ideas and sounds that lingered long after their origins were complete.

Mark Templeton: Sea Point 12″