MARK TEMPLETON: Jealous Heart CD Under the Spire Recordings

MARK TEMPLETON: Jealous Heart  CD Under the Spire Recordings

Electro-acoustic musician Mark Templeton kicks things off in an obscure, but engaging fashion.  Ambient broken pads and guitar float off kilter and parallel to one another and eventually gel as the notes stumble together; it’s an effective blurring aural experience that sets the backdrop not too dissimilar to looking through a window at traffic passing, on a rainy day.

Things carry on in the same fashion come track two ‘Once Were Down’, this time with the interruption of a trumpet.  For the uninitiated this may sound like a lot of thespian meanderings that should be avoided, but with the subtle electronics this once again evokes a thought processes coupled with sound sculptured emotions.

In a lot of respects, ‘Jealous Heart’ reminds me of Fennesz, at least in the ambient sense.  Carefully layered with no individual element swamping another this is pleasant on the ear and would make the perfect backdrop to driving lonely highways in the early hours of the morning, just before the sun comes up.

The press release proclaims Templeton’s latest release as not too dissimilar to a “Jazz club under the sea” and they’re not that far off the mark; however, there is more to this album than that moniker invokes alone.  For those that loved ‘Stairway to the Stars’ by The Caretaker, you will be in your element listening to this.

8/10