the edmonton journal:

Soundtrack composers usually find their inspiration and sonic cues in scenes from the film. But Mark Templeton didn't want to take the easy out with fields awake, a thought provoking audiovisual installation at Latitude 53.

The local musician and a few of his friends, including the Batke brothers from The Faunts, opted to write and record eight separate ambient tracks before Sean Corbett shot his idyllic scenes of clouds, fields, rivers and sunrises. As a result, Templeton was much more active, suggesting shots and advising in the editing process.

"This is opposite - the audio is the film and the film is the score," he says. "I worked really closely with Sean, we talked over a lot of ideas, so there's a real close connection there. He's obviously the guy with the experience, but I knew what I wanted it to look like."

If that wasn't challenging enough, fields awake tackles some of humanity's toughest subjects: life, God, death and the afterlife. Yet Templeton does so with a gentle hand - he doesn't try to impose his own thoughts on listeners and viewers. (Nor is he more forthcoming in interviews.) Instead, his compositions and images are very meditative. A whoosh of synths accompanies a piano elegy and a sunrise. Droning synths meander with clouds. Jeremy Putz's accordion hums and guitar notes drip like drops of water while an unseen car drives by trees and fields. Birds twitter, children laugh and an organ slowly swells as a grey screen fades to black.

"I don't like to think of it as a heavy, death-metal project," chuckles Templeton. "These are subjects (about which) I've come to my own conclusions - on death and the existence of a god. I'm OK with dealing with those but I know in our society, a lot of people aren't. I didn't want to do a project where I basically shared my thoughts on this, because I think there's too many people who do it from one subjective standpoint and I wanted it to be more from (the view) of people who I came in contact with."

Through it all, ghostly voices of his dying grandfather and strangers in Europe pervade Templeton's recordings - "I am convinced there is something beyond this life," says one woman with a thick accent - the only overt indication of fields awake's themes.

"I felt if there were field recordings of the human voice, people would be able to relate to it more," he says. "I had the opportunity to go to Belgium, Holland and France - there's some recordings of the Paris metro and Ypres is where I got the pipe organ and the sounds of children playing."

Templeton was involved in every aspect of the three-year process to make fields awake, including sewing the packages of an accompanying DVD/CD. Not only was it laborious, he was also distracted by other ventures - a songwriting stint in Berlin, a visit to a music festival in Montreal, the recording of his EP, frail as breath, released in September. He was also vexed with the question of how best to present fields awake. Live in concert? Or as a gallery installation, where art lovers can listen to his recordings on headphones while watching Corbett's montages on a TV screen?

Initially, Templeton thought about performing live, which would've meant trying to synchronize five musicians with the images. He eventually scrapped the idea in favour of the installation, thereby providing a much more intimate experience for gallery-goers.

"I felt it would've been restricting for the musicians to play (live) to the film and if it didn't go off seamlessly, I would've been broken. Doing an installation makes the most sense for this project. If you go to a pop show, the crowd experiences it collectively - they're sitting at a table with their friends or they're standing up. I wanted this project to be more about the individual coming to conclusions on their own."

November 2005