FEATURES Mark Renner’s ’80s LPs Blended Gauzy Ambient With Lo-Fi Jangle By Joe Darling · March 07, 2018

On a trip through Philadelphia in 2013, RVNG Intl. label head Matt Werth stopped off at a flea market to do some rummaging. While flipping through a crate of records, he paused on an album cover that caught his eye. The album was All Walks of This Life, the self-released debut from Upperco, Maryland native Mark Renner. Produced in a run of just 1,000 copies in 1986, Renner’s subtle art pop fell quietly and unexpectedly into the fray of Baltimore’s DIY/punk scene—intimately admired, but never finding the channels that might have vaulted him to wider renown.

Thirty-two years later, RVNG unveils Few Traces, a collection of Renner’s output from 1982 to 1990, including tracks from his 1988 record for the storied indie label Restless. The 21-track Traces contains an astonishing blend of musical ideas, from fragile minimalist pop to gentle synth-centered instrumentals that invoke both classical chamber music and Christian liturgical traditions. In other places, the work connects the dots between the gauzy, bending New Age of London’s Woo and the lo-fi jangle of Cleaners From Venus to the tender coming-of-age songs of Brisbane’s The Go-Betweens.

Now youthfully retired at the age of 57, Renner lives with his wife in Fort Worth, Texas, where he focuses his attention on his work as a painter and songwriter. We spoke with Renner about Few Traces and the deeper history of his artistic career.

Mark Renner
Photo by William Flayhart
Merch for this release:
2 x Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)

I latched onto a passage in the liner notes about a Baltimore radio DJ who couldn’t believe your music came from that area. It made me wonder if you felt at odds with your surroundings in Baltimore.

I sort of grew up as an outsider, because I grew up in the rural farmlands that surround the city, about an hour outside of Baltimore. As far as musical points of reference, by high school I was no longer interested in what the mainstream had to offer. I remember hearing recordings and saying ‘Is that all?’ I think the most liberating thing about the punk movement was that if you had a guitar or a keyboard and weren’t afraid to discover, self-expression was just open to you. Some of my records my mother thought were awfully strange. I remember bringing home Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures and listening to it and my mother asked if it was some kind of horror record. She wasn’t quite sure what she was hearing. I was probably alone in my tastes and discoveries and pursuits.

And you felt that disconnect in Baltimore as well, or more specifically within the rural setting?

It was awfully hard to make that step from your garage or your bedroom to the point where you could perform. There were a few independent clubs [in Baltimore] at the time that offered work to bands that did original material. They didn’t pay a whole lot and they were pretty shabby. There was a group of guys that hung out in the record shops that were like-minded.

I once answered an ad in a paper by some guys who had mentioned Ultravox. It was strange to me, because I hadn’t encountered too many people interested in that genre. I played with them for a while, and while it didn’t work out, it was a growing experience.

My only experience with any outside groups in Baltimore was when my band opened for Flock of Seagulls. The only thing I can tell you about that was that those guys were really rude and they didn’t let us have a soundcheck. The keyboard player was playing Simple Minds covers when we were supposed to be doing our soundcheck, and he just sat there while we were sitting by the stage, waiting to bring our equipment on.

The essence of that experience, alongside a few other things I’ve read about you, make it seem as if you were somewhat suspicious of the music industry.

When I signed with Restless [Records], there were compromises that I had to make. When you hand over something you’ve created to someone else to promote, you want to be represented accurately. You’re filled with the excitement of having your music take off, but the idea of compromise didn’t sit well with me. It’s not really a sense of pride, but there’s a point where you might have to disagree on the way certain things should be. For my album Painter’s Joy, I really needed more time to work on it, but they needed to get it out. Because of those compromises, I shied away from that.

I remember one of the guys from Restless asking me when I was going to tour and, at the time, I was a new father and had a growing family and I really just didn’t want to be away from them. I really had no interest in it. I don’t think it was a conditional thing, but I wasn’t helping them sell the record at all. I guess, in a way, I may have suffered in their eyes in that sense. I wasn’t doing a whole lot to promote the album.

It feels like you actually find more satisfaction in the process than anything else. It reminds me of the notion of journey versus destination. Sales and stardom are this lofty end goal, whereas you seem more stable in the process of the work. Do you relate to that?

Yeah, [my music is] just not a very commercial thing to offer anybody. We’re doing this interview right now, and I’m trying to help RVNG as much as I can to promote this record, because they just did so much to put it together. They really extended themselves and were patient while I tried to dig up all this material. I don’t think I necessarily have an anti-commercial attitude, but I see their investment and I’m grateful for it. There’s no greater honor to me than anyone who would invest [in my work], to like something enough to want to hear it again, or to invest in one of my paintings because they want to see it on their wall every day. I’m certainly grateful for people’s interest. That does matter to me. Even from my very first album, I got letters from as far away as Poland and I was completely baffled as to how they would have even gotten a copy of it. It’s very rewarding to hear people’s impressions of something that was given birth on a little four-track cassette player.

In Brandon Soderberg’s liner notes, he refers to you as the ‘Rust Belt Eno.’ If attention around this release builds, that nickname could stick. I wanted to see if you were comfortable with it.

[Laughing] To be perfectly honest with you, I think Brian Eno’s brother, Roger, is much more talented than he is. And Brian might even say that. I don’t say that to disrespect Brian. I really like his brother’s chamber music and soundtrack work. But no, I’m not put off by that. I think I had Another Green World on 8-track when I was in high school.

Mark Renner
Photo by James Matis
Merch for this release:
2 x Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)

You’ve mentioned chamber music and your relationship to the church, too. How has spirituality factored into your creative life?

I grew up in the Catholic church and later moved to the Protestant church so I’ve been exposed to the full realm of hymns. I really am moved by everything from sacred choral work to some of the classic Protestant hymns. I’m working on a recording right now, and one of the songs is a rewrite of a Scottish hymn. I put different music to the words, but growing up and listening to the anthemic qualities from the hymnal and from the church canon meant an awful lot to me. I usually go to Scotland every year and, in Edinburgh in St. Giles Cathedral, there’s usually an organist practicing there, and one of my favorite things to do is to reserve a couple hours late in the afternoon or early evening before they close and listen to someone rehearsing. I have a deep appreciation the choral works and chamber music at church over history from early on up until the early part of last century.

Have you been working on any new recordings?

Yeah, I have eight originals recorded now. The song that opens the documentary that Maia Stern did [called Few Places] is one of the songs that will be on the new album. It’s called ‘Ceiling Becomes the Sky.’ I’m hoping to finish things [for the new album] by the end of February.

-Joe Darling
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