John Watermann (1935-2002) was an influential, if underestimated (mainly due to limited distribution of his discography, except a couple of more famous discs), experimental composer, and also a writer, painter and sculptor. Diagnosed with incurable myeloma in 2000, he got in touch with Frans de Waard (Freiband, Beequeen, Korm Plastics, etc.) and they started working on a field recording based piece, which was never finished. When Watermann passed away in 2002, de Waard thought of this special tribute, featuring artists Watermann had collaborated with (Ralf Wehowsky, Asmus Tietchens and Merzbow) re-reading his final piece "Toowong Cemetary", here aptly left as the last track. De Waard, present as Freiband, uses as a source for his piece both Watermann's recording and all the other contributions. The result is a heartfelt and artistically successful farewell (no track is less than good), and also a quite varied one, though the original field recordings act as a sort of fil rouge throughout, from Tietchens' electroacoustic experiments to Merzbow's noise bath to Freiband's microsounds. Wehowsky, incorporating sounds from "Toowong Cemetary" in a composition with sitar and "handorgel-manipulation", is probably offering the most challenging and layered piece, but the quality is consistent throughout. Besides its commemorative intent, "Epitaph for John" is an excellent and much recommended cd. More tribute pieces, based on the same sources, are available here: www.microsound.org/watermann; and don't forget that Cold Spring is about to reprint Watermann's masterpiece "Calcutta Gas Chamber".