Clark [Warp, Planet Mu]
As a teenager nabbing his sister's 'Warp-when-they-were-in-Sheffield' tapes, soaking up rare groove and hip-hop, Clark's musical epiphanies were found walking to college in the winter with his headphones on really loud and the air all fresh and frosty. The three pieces that changed his life forever? Pavement's 'Slanted & Enchanted', and fittingly, Squarepusher's 'Theme From Ernest Borgnine' and Autechre's 'Vletrmx21'.
At 20 year old, he signed with Warp Records while still studying at Bristol University. Clark is content to distance himself from the oft-maligned term 'intelligent dance music' or 'IDM', a term most associated with his label-mates Aphex Twin, Squarepusher or Autechre. “I was writing music before that term really existed I suppose, but when I first started writing electronic music I just thought of it as techno. Even the sort of ambient stuff, using violin samples and strings with no beats, I still thought of it as techno. Most of my friends are kind of real musicians, and we do collaborate on things like that.” And there is plenty of that musicianship at work in Clark's output – he uses guitar, drums and piano, albeit unrecognisable and heavily processed, and his programming is ambitious and completely unique. Again, not content with 'clever' music only for the cognoscenti, he readily admits “the ridiculous brute force of modern pop engineering is definitely not something I've ever shied away from.”
Clark plays 100% Live at New Guernica on Thursday 3rd December, with local support provided by Qua, Ai Yamamoto, Cloud Speaker, Xian, Dave Pham, Matt tudor, JPS, Nam & Jinga. Tickets available through Moshtix, http://www.moshtix.com.au/event.aspx?id=31816.
New Guernica, 2/322 Little Collins St, Melbourne.
http://www.newguernica.com.au
