Canadian sound artist Mark Templeton has always maintained a sense of dualism in his work. His usage of tape loops combined with digital textures creates the feeling of a flickering world, in which different sound strata orbit one another. His latest release, Two Verses – his second of the year after the intoxicating Inner Light – emphasises that duality. Every piece on the album contains two parts, often consisting of disparate sonic layers that are nonetheless simpatico with one another. The album’s defining quality is its dense, all-encompassing world of echo, one that shows through even in its lighter, more scaled-back moments. This is deeply intricate and engaging music, and there’s always something moving just under the surface of Templeton’s soundscapes.
The album opens with ‘Staged/Return’, a hypnotic piece of digital detritus colored by shimmering piano samples. The piece evokes images of an abandoned undersea shopping mall, immersive in its textural decay. The next piece, the fittingly titled ‘Highway/Hypnosis’, calls to mind Celer with its tape loop ambience, augmented by shuffling glitchy textures. One of the highlights of the album is ‘Soft/Focus’, a dense, foggy hum of hazy low end and chiming trumpet samples. The piece has the effect of making the listener feel as though they are sitting perfectly stationary in the center of a cloud. Halfway through, the piece shifts into a fluttering, crackly muzak sample, supplemented by flowing water sounds.
While Templeton’s soundscapes are spacious enough that they could linger on indefinitely if they wanted to, there are also plenty of moments that highlight Templeton’s range as a sound artist. ‘Impossible/Bottle’ opens with a deep, prominent dub bassline layered over murky drums and an offbeat jazzy sample before transitioning into a loping guitar crunch. ‘Transverses/Verses’ presents a dark, glitched out soundscape, one that conjures smokey alleyways and empty movie theaters in its hypnagogic expanse. ‘Floating/Sculpture’ starts as an Oval-esque piece of downbeat rainy-day glitchiness, then fades into mysteriously pretty echo-laden den of pitch-shifted vocals.
As a whole, ‘Two Verses’ is an ever-shifting world of sound, never quite settling into any one comfort zone. The album encapsulates much of what has made Templeton one of the most engaging and unique sound artists in the ever-crowded ambient/glitch sphere. Whereas lesser ambient musicians might run the risk of making treacly background music, Templeton’s artistry ensures that his music continues to be rewarding with multiple listens.
