#this is rotating in my brain at an immaculate speed

[calistatic]

That's it, you've officially got me Hooked™

 Danny and his haunt are more than a little distressed to find out that Pariah Dark can’t be destroyed and can only be sealed away due to being the Ancient of Darkness. Danny is worried about someone trying to wake him up again, while his friends are more worried about the ghost going after the newborn Ancient of Space again. 

 They scour libraries, search high and low in both the Ghost Zone and the living world for a solution before finally just asking Clockwork. 

 And well, they feel like just a bit of idiots but also elated. 

 Because if Danny can become the new embodiment of space, then what’s to stop them from giving the power of darkness to someone else that’s not Pariah Dark? 

 They make a list of requirements, ask both ghosts and living friends. There’s nothing in their world, no one quite right, but what about other worlds? The realms are supposedly infinite right? So there had to be someone out there. 

 And while it takes a long, long time, they eventually find one when a small bloodied ghost of greens, golds, and reds comes forth shyly, eyes burning with determination. He speaks of heroes and villains- far more than their own world- of a city cloaked in shadow and of a single man trying to help despite it seeming impossible. 

 Who better to become the new Dark besides the dark knight himself after all? 

[theseventhhex]

Clark Interview

Chris Clark

Photo by Tim Saccenti

Sixteen years since his debut and eight albums later, a now rightly considered cornerstone of Warp's core artist base, Clark, lines up what is sure to amount to his most cutting edge and immaculately scored vision of varied dancefloor dynamics and richly-ground techno hydraulics with the high-rise hypnotics that make up ‘Death Peak’. The latest record is an incredible and starkly visceral series of recordings with strong influences from the battered 12"s of mid 90s warehouse techno and drum & bass mixed ethereal electronics and library record exploration. Clark remains a true pioneer of the hypnotic groove, and constantly yet carefully constructing sounds that will lay down the blueprint for the future… We talk to Chris Clark about trimming down content, the Clipse and severity in music…

TSH: Was your approach for ‘Death Peak’ consisting of fluid rules and being open to change and possibility?

Clark: Yeah, totally. You know, I actually always have a wide range of ideas that I have on tap. For me, this record was quite easy to chisel down and to give it a distinctive feel. I wanted the identity of the record to be audible at every section of a track. My girlfriend is a choreographer and when she makes her work, if you take a frame from any point of it, it’s so distinctly her own, and I want my music to feel like that. I want people to hear this record and instantly know it’s from ‘Death Peak’ at every point of a track.

TSH: You’re also never afraid or trimming down content and deleting…

Clark: Yeah, I condensed a lot of material into this record, possibly more than any other record I’ve made, which makes it feel really, really tight. I still keep all of the work I cut and I just continue to write all of the time, I’m really prolific like that. I guess I have an ego-pit of deleted ideas that I don’t let the public hear and I just release what I think I want people to hear. I enjoy all of my content and never think of anything as wasted, it’s just that I don’t want to over-saturate, I just want to saturate to the right point.

TSH: What aims did you outline in terms of the speed of the record?

Clark: At first, I wanted the speed to be quite gentle. I think this record has a very different trajectory to all of my other records. It starts off quite warm, seductive and familiar and then it gets more darker and twisted. It transitions to a steep climb all the way to the distortion at the end of ‘Un U.K.’, which is brutal and really harsh. It’s kind of a paradox that I wanted the album to progress as both seamless and harsh, but I guess I just wanted the sounds to remain native to the record.

TSH: What resonated with you most about ‘Peak Magnetic’?

Clark: I’m constantly competing with my old work and for a while I was thinking if ‘Peak Magnetic’ could actually lead this record and whether it was better than ‘Unfurla’. Once I came up with the ending for ‘Peak Magnetic’, I was convinced it was better than ‘Unfurla’. For a while I only liked the Goth loop bit, but once I got the chord progression for the end, it just caught on fire. I definitely feel that this song was the right one to lead the record. Also, I liked how it started unassuming and then it gets to this point of visceral intensity – I just love that type of narrative in music.

TSH: How much of a challenge was it to get the drums right on ‘Hoova’?

Clark: I actually finished that track at my mum’s on Christmas day. I didn’t want her to know that I was writing music, so I pretended to go to bed and ended up finishing it. I actually finished the whole album around Christmas so it all feels quite festive to me. But, yeah, drums are always the hardest thing to nail because they always date music, but not in a bad way, I mean genres and periods of music are defined by the drum sounds more than anything. I was just glad that I was able to refine the drums on this track and have it become so concise.

TSH: Are the vocals just another instrument in the mix…

Clark: I guess so. I don’t really like that thing of having one big track with vocals, it always feels a bit cynical, you know? I wanted the vocals on this record to be a secondary element in a way, but also a continuous element that adds a human inflection to the record.

TSH: Do you still incorporate the idea of using 4 hours of brain power a day to help you to create efficiently?

Clark: I think so. I reckon 4 hours is good and then the rest of the day can be chilled, ha!

TSH: Does ‘Hell Hath No Fury’ by the Clipse still get heavy rotation from you?

Clark: I love that album. It’s just kind of ice cold, isn’t it? I like every bar of it and I can definitely listen to it all the way through. I’ve binged on that album quite a bit, and I guess I like it so much partly because it’s so different to what I do. The production is just so clean and amazing.

TSH: How do you keep your mindset fresh?

Clark: Well, I’m always kind of busy. I mostly just read and keep up with the fucked up world that we live in. You know, I want to affect some positive change rather than giving in to this politics of outrage, which I guess can be quite tempting. I want to think outside of the echo chamber, but it’s hard to avoid the suffering in the world, and that’s quite worrying. I mean how do you perform some kind of alchemy with all of the toxic hatred around you? I guess I want to turn some of the negativity around me in to something good and constructive, even if it’s a really small gesture - it’s still something. In order to get somewhere in music, you need to be a bit severe, but I think with politics although it’s unfashionable, moderation is the key. There needs to be more extremity in art and less extremity in politics.

TSH: What do you feel will define your future musical endavours?

Clark: Well, I’ve bitten off quite a large chunk of range within my music and in a way it’s all about refining the range. It’s taken about 6 years for me to get to this point, but it’s been a fun process refining my skills, because now I’m so certain and in-tune with what I want now. There’s a distinct terrain that I’m on and that’s what I want to keep pushing with my future work.

Clark - “Winter Linn”

Death Peak