In Strict Tempo, vol. 94: Clark Interview
This week I sit down and chat with musician Chris Clark - Clark released a number of essential IDM-leaning albums on Warp beginning in 2001, before setting up his own label -Throttle Records- in 2019 where he has been releasing music since.
Today sees the release of Clark’s latest album Steep Stims, an album conceived during his live performances and rooted firmly on the dancefloor. Having been a long-time fan of his work, and having enjoyed the pre-released singles I wanted to speak to Chris and find out more behind this album and the practice behind it.
In Strict Tempo: Hi Chris, thanks for taking the time to sit with me today. You’ve got a new album coming out, so let’s start with that.
The press release describes Steep Stims as a “return to the rave”, and you’ve said in it that it reminded you a bit of making your debut Clarence Park, which is -it’s fair to say, a bit more experimental, and a bit less ‘dancefloor’ than this one. So was it always the intention to make a more clubby, ravey album?
Chris Clark: No, not really. I tend to not pay too much respect to my conscious intentions. When you’re making music the worse thing is to sorta second guess what it should be rather than just being absorbed in the process of making it. As soon as you have a few pieces, it started to get a momentum of it’s own and starts to take shape.
I have this weird thing with music- because I write so much of it, and I have this horrifying thing sometimes where I write stuff and I don’t even remember writing it, it just happens in this fugue state, so quite often what you consciously want from music is not really the pure enjoyment of it, you set up all these rules and procedures, the pure enjoyment is the escape from that, from whatever your ego tells you, it’s liberating. It almost starts to make itself, there are always surprises and non sequiturs.
This is a very long-winded answer, but I didn’t start with the intention of making a clubby record, it just invariably happened as I’ve been playing live shows of this material for the last couple of years, so in a way it was informed by that.
Whenever I play a show, I’m really buzzed by the feedback I get, which is completely different to the simulated feedback on social media, which isn’t really what I’m in this for. I love gigs, the communal aspect of playing a show and hearing your music played loud. I came back from these shows and realised I had an album on my hands as I would work on the tracks much more because I was enjoying it, I was lost in it, so in that sense, it comes from playing shows a lot.
IST: That was going to be my next question: Did you get a chance to test any of these tracks in the club, did you give them out to any DJs or DJ yourself?
CC: I gave them to a few friends, but mainly it was me testing them in the live shows.
IST: You said you got into a fugue state when you’re making music - does that come easily, to you or do you need to dim the lights for example and really get into it?
CC: It comes pretty naturally to the point where I’ll be on a train making music on my laptop, and I’ll miss the stop I want to get off at. It doesn’t always have positive outcomes. But it’s an obsession.
IST: On this album then, it says here you made it all with just one synth?
CC: Maybe 80 or 90% is made with the Access Virus, but there’s also some Korg Kronos, but yeah mostly the Virus, those massive Hoover sounds, and the trance riffs
IST: It’s quite a distinctive sounding synth isn’t it?
CC: It is, but the thing is I don’t even really like trance!
IST: It’s okay, no one admits to liking trance. We’re all friends here.
CC: But seriously, when I was 15 or 16 trance was the only electronic music I had access to, and the only thing I liked about it was that it was electronic, it was mind-blowing because it wasn’t guitars. But then I heard Jeff Mills - Live At The Liquid Rooms and it just changed everything. I never made trance, I never wanted to make trance, I was just really interested in sequencing on an Atari and an old hardware sampler, I was excited about that, not like a genre of dance music in particular.
It’s this thing of making creativity a bit difficult for yourself and getting enjoyment from that. It would have been easy for me to make a record with sounds I know and love, that I’m familiar with. There’s something about using a palette that you don’t really find yourself in, and sorta turning it your way without even realising it. It’s amazing, like sideways trance I guess…
The thing about the Virus is it’s quite hard to program. I find it quite fiddly, and the outputs clip a lot, the reverb default is like far too long and muddy- but it sounds amazing. Combined with tape, a desk, It’s a really powerful sound, I love it.
IST: Do you find imposing limits on yourself, like to just one or two synths, can actually be quite freeing?
CC: I’ve got an old DMX drum machine, and I love it. But it’s really hard to use because the kick is quite naff and out of balance with the rest of it to my ears, so I end up pitching it-the hi hats are powerful, I made a more powerful kick out of the hi hat than the kick the other day. The kick is really thin and the snare is massive, but it forces you to be creative. And I love that because with computers it’s endless, it’s overwhelming, too much.
IST: Like you’ve got access to every instrument, every synth and drum machine ever made? The same with music and Spotify
CC: Yes, by being everything it becomes nothing. I feel like music, or the way it’s consumed-just that word “consumed” is in a bit of a sorry state at the moment, you forget what it is. I have people I know, people who follow music quite closely, who’ve asked me if I’ve used any AI on the album, and I’m like “no, I didn’t”. I wouldn’t even let a human alter the notation, let alone an AI.
IST: I read the other day that Deezer just removed something like 70% of music from it’s platform because it’s just generative AI, and there’s lots of research showing that around 50% of music on Spotify doesn’t even get streamed 5,000 times.
CC: The main thing for me, is that they don’t measure the quality of the listen. Does something count as a play if it’s playing in an empty H&M in a shopping centre?
I like the idea of listening to music in the background, but I can’t relate to it. It’s like-you don’t read “in the background”. I can sit and listen to The Cure, maybe just two tracks and it will be full of meaning-and then I won’t listen to them for another year because I’ve got so much out of that one listen. It’s just all about quantity it seems, not quality, but it’s not really being examined.
IST: We’re touching more on industry topics now, and that’s something I wanted to ask because your last few albums have been released on your own label, whereas you were on Warp for a long time before that. How do you find the process of self-releasing as opposed to working with a label?
CC: I co-own Throttle Records with my manager Greg Eden, but it’s really good because it means I don’t have to get batted round other artists release schedules, I can release when I want, I can release what I want. We outsource things like press and the artwork, although I still work with Alma Haser, I worked with her since I was on Warp and I’ve got a really good connection with her. So really, I don’t feel the need not to self-release if you see what I mean. It’s not easy, and it was a bit daunting at first.
There’s still good indie labels out there still, but there’s also the pressure to do more Instagram, to become abit of a tv presenter and stuff like that, whereas I prefer to just write music.
IST: So back to the new album, was there anything in your previous albums that informed or influenced this album in any way?
CC: Clarence Park is in the spirit of it - where every track was done in one take, the demos came together quite quickly. With Clarence Park I couldn’t save anything, I had to finish every track in the session. Now there’s all these YouTube tutorials, I feel like they often teach people the wrong thing. They teach you how to fit in, rather than stand out-like ‘what do you want to say?’. Not literally, but what is the thing that excites you in music? What’s meaningful? I never love a track purely because of how it’s been mixed, but I can appreciate it. I can appreciate the nice plate and cutlery etc. But I like music that brushes up against the limit of the medium.
So that’s how the spirit of Clarence Park relates to it, it was a bit more free. It’s revitalising in a way, just listening to the demo and realising it only needs a little bit of work. My wife’s really good at it because if I play her two mixes, she’ll choose the one that feels best, and it’s right. She’s not like ‘the high hats are clashing with the synths on the third bar” you need to sidechain that to 3 different stems with 8 x 0.5db cuts every third bar.
If you listen to Loveless, what modern mixdown rules do these comply to? But it feels alive, it’s like Jeff Mills again, it feels alive. But we can’t play it in shopping centres.
I really love the idea of supermarkets playing really unearthly, eerie ambient. Not playlist stuff, tweaked foley, interesting harmony, It would be amazing.
IST: Did you ever see the video of Mike Tyson entering the ring against Michael Spinks in Vegas back in 1990? He comes in to this really dissonant noise that sounds like chains rattling and things like that. And it’s terrifying for this poor guy about to get beaten to a pulp by Tyson, hearing this most haunting noise whilst he’s waiting. For a long time people thought it was Coil, but it was actually just the sound engineer who worked for the casino who made it.
CC: Incredible. It’s good to imagine the context for your music, to make it feel vital. Imagine you’re wanting to take over the world with your music. I mean, my music probably won’t get played in supermarkets, but I love the idea that it could. That it doesn’t make any “normal” sense, and makes the world feel uncanny and weird, because life is very strange and we’re all nuts.
Thanks to Chris and Duncan at 9PR for the interview. Steep Stims is out on all major streaming and download platforms now, and also on vinyl.
New Music
Onto this weeks new tunes…
Clark - Steep Stims [Throttle Records]
You’ve read the interview, now check the album out. Clark returns with an album of clubbier tunes, but still with enough attention to sound design to keep you listening. Straight up 4/4 belters this is not, but they’ll still do the damage on the dancefloor.
Hydroplane - A Place In My Memory Is All I Have To Claim [Efficient Space]
It was Efficient Space who bought Hydroplane back into public consciousness with a timely reissue of their 1997 debut a couple of years back, before record shop par excellence World of Echo compiled a collection of tracks shortly after. Now, after 24 years Melbourne’s Hydroplane are back with a new album, and it’s everything you’ve ever wanted.
Aicher - Defensive Acoustics [Downwards]
Downwards bring My Disco/Eros man Liam Andrews out of cold storage for this new album of concrete jungle. As stark and icy as a ten-stretch in a cell in Siberia this is the sound of metal machine music at it’s very harshest. Cannot recommend this highly enough if that’s your sort of thing. No streaming, so you’ll have to commit to the vinyl.
Claire M Singer - Gleann Ciuin [Touch]
A new album of longform, evolving organ works by Claire M Singer, inspired by the Cairngorms you could easily lose yourself in the mists of this record.
Tapes - Photos of my Frog EP [Jahtari]
Quirky little six tracker of digital riddims from one half of Rezzett. Something to make you think it was summer again.
Ugne Uma - Rage Love Strange Love/Someone Called Donna [Somewhere Press]
Hazy 7” from Lithuania’s Ugne Uma. The A-Side calls to mind Hype Williams-esque smoky murk, whereas the B side gives a Vivien Goldman vibe with a Levene-influenced bassline.
