CLARK
Iradelphic
WARP222
Warp Records 2012
12 Tracks. 39mins53secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD

It has been over three years since Christopher Stephen Clark last carved a hefty slice of electronic music for Warp. Following the lush abstract feasts that were Empty The Bones Of You and Body Riddle, Clark, having moved to Berlin, descended on the dance floor with his following two album, Turning Dragon and Totems Flare and smeared his heavily distorted electro-infused techno all over it, claiming once and for all his share of the club scene.

It is a very different Clark who is at the helm of Iradelphic. Ditching heavy-footed beats and hyper-active distorted electronics in favour of much more nuanced soundscapes, Chris Clark looks out towards the world and absorbs a rich palette of psychedelic hues Continue Reading »

The noughties have seen probably the most radical changes in the music industries since the advent of the record. Consumption habits have dramatically moved from traditional to digital formats, music has been increasingly seen as something to steal rather than to buy, and listening habits means that nowadays, the album is becoming increasingly redundant. Or is it? Whereas it had, at least in some circles, become totally acceptable to fill records with substandard music, it is now essential for artists to create consistent pieces of work if they want to retain the attention of their audience. The last ten years have delivered their fair share of hits and misses, and this list doesn’t pretend to be in any way shape or form exhaustive. This is just, in no particular order, the definitive list of the 20 albums that have defined the noughties at themilkfactory.

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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Warp20 (Box Set) / Warp20 (Recreated) / Warp20 (Chosen)
WARP20.0 / WARP201 / WARP 202
Warp Records 2009
– / 21 Tracks / 24 Tracks. – / 99mins13secs / 127mins18secs

Warp20 (Box Set)
Boomkat: BX

Warp20 (Recreated)
Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD iTunes: DLD

Warp20 (Chosen)
Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD iTunes: DLD

LFO. Three metallic blue letters, straddled by a ghostly shape, set on a black background. Three letters that changed things forever. The year was 1991, I was browsing through the new arrivals in my local records store, and the Designers Republic artwork of LFO’s Frequencies was standing out from the blur, calling out for my attention. An hour or so later, I was left baffled by a record which I was struggling to understand. On one side, the lush flow and shattering bass of LFO or Simon From Sydney irresistibly titillated my appetite for crisp evocative electronics, on the other, I had never experienced anything quite as bare as Mentok 1 or We Are Back. This album bore its influences on its sleeve, literally, and it took a few listens to ‘get it’. But ‘get it’ I did. More than I could have ever wished for. I was hooked. Not only on LFO, but also on Warp.

The brainchild of Steve Beckett and the late Rob Mitchell, who founded the label twenty years ago in the former metallurgic city of Sheffield, Warp found itself at a crossroad between the dying acid scene and the nascent UK techno/electronica movements Continue Reading »

CLARK
Totems Flare
WARP185
Warp Records 2009
11 Tracks. 44mins53secs

Buy: CD | LP

It is almost hard to believe that Clark only released his first album eight years ago so much has he become, in that time, one of the strongest, most consistent and emblematic artists on Warp, to the point of challenging the might of heavy weights like Aphex Twin or Squarepusher. His constant deliveries, started with Clarence Park, have since considerably grown in confidence and vision, and his unashamed use of heavily electronic sounds, at a time when others seemed to move away from those, has made him one of the finest purveyors of the genre.

With Totems Flare, Clark’s follow up to last year’s Turning Dragon and his fifth full length, he continues to create strong and gritty electronic music, and he wastes no time showing off his latest dirty grooves with album opener Outside Plume and Growls Garden, the leading track to his recent EP. Continue Reading »

CLARK
Growls Garden
WAP272
Warp Records 2009
06 Tracks. 25mins18secs
Format: 12″/CD/Digital

Buy: CD

Warp’s enfant terrible returns with another devastating slice of dirty gritty electronic music. Follow up to last year’s Turning Dragon, his most upbeat record to date, Growls Garden ups the ante once again as Clark launches another digital assault on the dance floor. Counting six tracks and clocking just over the twenty five minute mark, this EP is perhaps Clark’s most eclectic release since Clarence Park, as he revisits the dark hues of Empty The Bones Of You or Body Riddle (Growls Garden, Distant Father Torch), and, as he did with Turning Dragon, cuts some fine body-jerking grooves and harsh beats (Seaweed, Gonk Roughage). Continue Reading »

CLARK
Turning Dragon
WARPCD162
Warp Records 2008
11 Tracks. 46mins35secs

Since he first appeared on the scene, in 2001, with his debut album, Clark has systematically upped the stakes with each new release, first by refocusing his sound essentially around electronics and gritty textures with Ceramics Is The Bomb and Empty The Bones Of You, then by refining his template and pushing into darker and dirtier territories with Body Riddle and its companion EPs, Throttle Furniture and Ted. With Turning Dragon, Clark steps up the pace, pushes up the experimentation levels and gets down and dirty on the dance floor.

Recorded in his apartment in Berlin, where Clark has recently moved, Turning Dragon is a much more immediate and incendiary collection, which builds on the momentum of the recent Throttle Promoter EP, yet those expecting a whole album of blasting Dirty Pixie or Kin Griff may be in for a shock. Continue Reading »

CLARK
Throttle Promoter
WAP238
Warp Records 2007
04 Tracks. 14mins39secs
Format: Digital / 12″

The press for Throttle Promoter, Clark’s newest release, has described the EP as a “surprise”, intended to pique interest for another surprise – his upcoming full-length, Turning Dragon, due January 2008. So much for months of pre-release hype, then, but it would seem that Clark has had enough of that. 2003’s Empty The Bones Of You was promoted as a more mature, darker, and more industrial Clark (still using his full name Chris Clark at the time), a promise upon which it delivered. 2006’s Body Riddle saw another reinvention of the persona, with the now-truncated Clark focusing on intricately layered, obsessively DSP’d beats, and more delicate and emotional atmospheres. Continue Reading »

CLARK
Body Riddle
WARPCD149
Warp Records 2006
11 Tracks. 42mins21secs

It’s been three years since Chris Clark unleashed his Empty The Bones Of You box of delights and promptly reaffirmed his position as one of Warp’s most promising talents. This sophomore effort wasn’t so much revisiting his early musical escapades, as heard on Clarence Park, as totally reinventing his sound, turning it upside down to strip it out of its puppy fat and refocus. Having since lost his first name so people wouldn’t ‘wasted oxygen on “Chris”’, Clark returns with Body Riddle and once again goes right back to the roots and settles new scores. Continue Reading »