CD - Mort Aux Vaches
"Mort Aux Vaches" (death to cows) shouted the anarcho-Communards as they turned against every form of authority. Echoes of this turbulent time still resound in the catalogue of Staalplaat, a Dutch indie label whose Berlin store has released some of the most interesting international experimental music over the last three decades. This time the task of holding the label's flag high has been assigned to Mark Templeton, a Canadian sound artist with an acoustic and instrumental background, a composer noted for his "pastoral" and "elegiac" sound with experimental and post-rock nuances. This recording contains improvisational scores, drones, soft noises and lo-fi beats, and recordings made in 2008, and is certainly the result of multiple sessions and complex editing work. The artist clearly reveals the piano sequences, the iterated sampled frequencies, the moments of suspension, together with slide guitar manipulations and the many patterns - all layered with skillful authorial expertise and inspired passion.
Aurelio Cianciotta