Eureka reduct

Having unveiled our 2012 picks characteristically late in the day, here's an anticipatory 'Best of' for the new year to jump the gun on next December's list frenzy - & even provide some kind of benchmark for our eventual contribution. The list is unencumbered by the restrictions - no more than one pick per artist/label - imposed on the recent Furtive 30...

This initial selection of some 20 coming highlights ranges from Stephan Mathieu's ravishing David Sylvian remix album, Wandermuede, which is already out as a download & has an imminent formal release,  as does his Un Coeur Simple, to more speculative ones. They also include long-awaited pieces such as Aurora Liminalis from William Basinski & Richard Chartier on LINE - the pair's first since their Untitled series was expanded in 2008 (having begun in 2004). 

This 'pined-for' category also features Chris Herbert's Constants (label unannounced), which will end an absence even longer on some measures - since Mezzotint in 2006. Nor has there been a full release from Mark Templeton to savour since 2009. 

Several works in progress will add further lustre to 2013 if/when they surface. These include a new solo album from Steinbruechel & an epic remix/re-interpretation/e-book project for Kenneth Kirschner (involving Steinbruechel, incidentally...) 

Also factored in: prospective debuts from two drone collaborations, Andere (Anduin & Radere) & A pond waiting for you to leap (Le Berger & Pascal Savy). The latter may still be some way off (though, happily, Sam Le Berger threatens "much more music" this year in any case).

NB: obviously enough, this year will bring many more great releases than those highlighted here. Many outstanding artists & labels are unrepresented here. Please let us know what else these ears should be anticipating... 

Andere - s/t (label unknown)

A pond begging you to leap - title unknown (label unknown)
Chris Abrahams - title unknown (Room 40)
Chris Herbert - Constants (label unannounced)

Cory Allen - The Great Order (Quiet Design)
David Sylvian/Stephen Mathieu - Wandermuede (samadhisound)
Duane Pitre - Bridges (Important) 
Kenneth Kirschner - remix album/e-book (Tokafi)
Lawrence English - Lonely Women's Club (Important)

Mark Templeton - Jealous Heart (Under The Spire)
Mountains - Centralia (Thrill Jockey)
Philip Jeck - title unknown (Touch; also Rosy Parlane/Sohrab 7"s)
Steinbruechel - title unknown (label unknown)
Stephan Mathieu - Un Coeur Simple (Baskaru)
Tashi Wada & Stephan Mathieu - Revenant (Schwebung)
Taylor Deupree & Ryuichi Sakamoto/Taylor Deupree & Stephen Vitiello - titles unknown (12k)
William Basinski - Nocturnes (2062)/Aurora Liminalis (with Richard Chartier, LINE) 
Yann Novak - Blue.Hour (Farmacia901)/Undefined (with Richard Chartier, Farmacia901)

Mark Templeton - Buffalo Coulee

Mountains - Living Lens

Cory Allen - The Great Order (Movement II) [re-up]

Stephan Mathieu - Félicité

william basinski & richard chartier - aurora liminalis (excerpt 2)

Yann Novak - Blue.Hour (Excerpt)


Yann Novak - Blue.Hour

Nunki (unmastered final) by chris herbert

A pond begging you to leap - Celeste's Fall [re-up]


Slips Into The Ether (Excerpt) by Andere.


Lawrence English's Lonely Women's Club

 
NB: top photo by Taylor Deupree. Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Lend Me Your Headphone

Even in an era of mega-compilations, Headphone Commute's ...and darkness came is a giant. Not just for its epic scale, though at 87 tracks its self-description as "colossal" is an un-hyperbolic statement of fact, but for its ambition: "to benefit all of those affected by Hurricane Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, which has devastated portions of the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States in late October 2012."

Specifically, HC will donate "100% of all the proceeds generated from the sale of this album." Beneficiaries are The Humane Society & the US arm of Medecins Sans Frontieres. 

The compilation costs $10 - 11.5 cents a track, value hounds. Though you can also opt to pay more.

Is it any good? The question of quality may seem in poor taste when the cause is exemplary or irrelevant when the price is so modest. But the contributors anyway include an alluring raft of LMYE alumni, including Lawrence English, Ezekiel Honig (solo & with Mark Templeton), Erik K Skodvin, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Simon Scott (solo & in a quartet with Corey Fuller & Marcus Fischer, who also features solo), Kane Ikin, Kreng, Machinefabriek, Celer, loscil, Scanner, Black Swan & Radere - some with exclusives to satisfy trainspotting impulses... 

Probably very pompous, but: commended

























Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

9535 Jasper

Staying with cassette culture, Mark Templeton brings unseasonal warmth to Edmonton, Alberta with a typically dense, knotty live set to celebrate his very fine recent-ish Scotch Heart tape for Sweat Lodge Guru. Stream or download this richly satisfying 30-minute excursion across moods & tones, plus an LMYE hack (with permission, though probably not approval of its cack-handedness...) of two favourite passages (particularly that ratcheting zithery section), below.

More live Templeton too in the form of an extract from his contribution to Staalplaat's renowned Mort Aux Vaches series. Recorded in late 2008, it shares the Artery set's subtle density but sets it off with a sweeter, airy voice.

Finally, from the heartening news department: besides a gradually maturing collaboration with Ezekiel Honig, a new solo release is on the way - "I have been working on a new album that I started back in 2009. It's a slow process, but I am happy w/ the direction it's moving in. I look forward to sharing it w/ you all someday soon!"

fieldsawake (Mark Templeton) - Artery live set

Live at the Artery (extract)

mark templeton - mort aux vaches (clip) [via pdis_inpartmaint]

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Already unspooling

Complex, hard-hewed beauty from three staples of LMYE's core curriculum: Mark Templeton, Kyle Bobby Dunn & Adam Thomas's Preslav Literary School. Each has new gear out or imminent - Templeton's fine Sweat Lodge Guru tape (represented by its misty, affecting title track, Scotch Heart), the meditative intensity of Runge's Last Stand (KBD's contribution to Ghostly's pretty impeccable SMM: Context comp - stream a 30-minute sampler below) & PSL's richly murky This Good Lesson Keep (from Veer, forthcoming on Interdisco): all are eminently worth time, cash, care...

Mark Templeton - Scotch Heart

Kyle Bobby Dunn - Runge's Last Stand (from SMM: Context, Ghostly)

GhostlyCast #42: felte - SMM Context

Tracklisting:
1. Goldmund - "Motion"
2. Leyland Kirby - "Polaroid"
3. Svarte Greiner - "Halves"
4. Christina Vantzou - "11 Generations Of My Fathers"
5. Jacaszek - "Elegia"
6. The Fun Years - "Cornelia Amygdaloid"
7. Manual - "Three Parts"
8. Aidan Baker - "Substantiated"
9. Rafael Anton Irisarri - "Moments Descend On My Windowpane"
10. Kyle Bobby Dunn - "Runge's Last Stand"
11. Peter Broderick - "Pause"

Preslav Literary School - This Good Lesson Keep

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Ceiling on the dance

From sister site Ears Alive: UK/European promoters - subtle, mesmerising Canadian ambient-glitcher Mark Templeton has a few dates still available on his UK/European tour next month (already visiting Berlin; Bolzano, Milan & Rome; Bristol, Cambridge, Hebden Bridge & London). Contact earslend@gmail.com for details.

Bio: 'Mark Templeton utilizes a background in acoustic music and instruments such as the guitar, banjo and accordion to compose electro-acoustic music using said instruments and a variety of effects processes. Since the release of his critically acclaimed Standing on a Hummingbird in 2007, his sound has been called "pastoral," but also "painterly" in an attempt to describe how his instruments are crumbled and reconstructed into new forms; a process further developed and realized on his 2009 release, Inland.

Templeton's works have been commissioned by organizations of contemporary dance, film and audiovisual disciplines. His live performances have at times been accompanied by Edmonton-based experimental filmmaker aAron Munson's visuals. In 2009 this ongoing collaboration resulted in the release of M. Templeton & aA. Munson: Acre Loss on CD and DVD.

Templeton has performed at international festivals and alternative spaces such as MUTEK Festival (Montreal), Unsound Festival (Krakow), Eat This Festival (Utrecht), Galapagos (New York), Send + Receive Festival (Winnipeg), Latitude 53 (Edmonton) and Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival (Montreal).'

Previous LMYE coverage.

MT home page / MySpace / SoundCloud.


Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Shimmering frame

Among the first artists featured back in our 2007 dawn (here, in fact), Mark Templeton's densely dreamy fragilities have become increasingly core, non-negotiable listening for LMYE - one of our 20 artists of 2009 & a lynchpin (alongside two more wonders, Ezekiel Honig & Klimek) of Anticipate, one of our five top labels of last year.



All of his releases - including the delicate, classic Standing on a Hummingbird, the fuzzy Inland & its Sea Point cousin, & the warmly glowing Acre Loss - are essential. Thanks to his notable willingness to share music (via this media page & this SoundCloud), hear or download tracks from each below.

His audio-visual collaborations with aA. Munson build a shimmering frame around his almost wry experimentalism, meanwhile (video orgy below...).

An unusually dark drone - Safely Into March ("commissioned piece for Postcards From Gowanus exhibit and radio narrowcast, New York City, March 2010") - surfaced recently. Grab this darkly brooding, subtly spacious giveaway without hesitation!

Mark Templeton > Safely Into March (self-released) > Hummingbird launch live set (Play My Tape) > Lisbon (from Summer Tour Remix Volume 1, Anticipate) > Rest Near Grey (from Tracks in the Snow, Serein) > Further To Speak (from OIO, Serein) > As the Day Grows Longer (from Holden Into Ryley, Anticipate) > Please Take Me / Sleep In Front Of (from Inland, Anticipate) > fade from the outset / lai wah (from fields awake, v + h) > Roots Growing / Tentative Growth (from Standing on a Hummingbird, Anticipate) > continue later / drama section (from Frail As Breath, robotopera) > it's ok to fall (from Acre Loss, Anticipate)

MT also features in both this great Anticipate mix & this one.



Safely Into March

Tentative Growth from aAron munson

Mark Templeton > Zoobizarre live set

Mark Templeton > live session

Mark Templeton > Avonmore live set



Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.