Clark - Ted EP (Warp)
4/5
By: Chris O'Toole
The crux with all music journalism is to describe the context of a piece, put it into context with both the artists previous work and their contemporaries and to try and share an understanding of what an artist has recorded and their success in their endeavour. However, it is often difficult to describe the emotions evoked or even the sounds employed, as, naturally, if this could be done to perfection, there would be no need for sound at all. Sound possesses different properties and needs to be enjoyed at first hand in order to be understood. All that can be hoped for is context, perspective and an outline of what the artist has aimed to achieve and what the result are. This is easier when the human element of recordings is to the fore, be it vocals or even instrumentation, played in a certain style by certain musicians. It is then less difficult to understand what the music is trying to convey, the thinking behind it and the results they have achieved. When this human element is removed, allowing machines to take over, for example, the characteristics are all that harder to define, the objectives all the more difficult to discern and the success all that more difficult to judge.
Removing the human element from recorded music forces a great number of people away from genres such as IDM; forcing it into the hands of an esoteric clique. The lack of human emotion, or obvious sentiment, of defined structure or vocal direction can leave some feeling cold and disinterested. As such the genre has languished, not in the shadows, but in its own self defined ambiguity. Artists remain deliberately vague with regard to their true identities, adopting pseudonyms, masks and a shifting sea of identities; in short they allow their digital recoded persona to shine, taking precedence over their more human form. Chris Clark is one such artist. Here, dropping his first name in favour of the monosyllabic surname, Clark builds on the success of his previous releases, the 'Body Riddle' LP, to climb through the ranks of Warp recording artists to present a collection of foreboding, tense electronica.
Built around the title track, 'Ted', the EP is a varied collection; predominantly dark and menacing but occasionally forward looking and filled with a natural wonder. Aphex Twin once stated that he saw all his recordings as differing shades of yellow, and if we are apply the same colour pattern to Clark, 'Ted' is deep seated grey with occasional flashes of brilliant white. Whilst it is not devoid of colour, it is certainly gloomy and sparing with its fleeting moments of relief. The title track lulls and eddies around a central motif, its ever changing appearance morphing from form to form without straying far from the centre. The track is writhes for close to two and a half minutes before reputing, seeming to shatter into a hundred metallic shards toward the end; each falling to earth with a spine tingling intensity. The track is notable for its technical proficiency, filled with glitches, clicks and all sorts of audio tricks commonly found in the genre, but they are employed with an acute awareness of the whole, giving the piece more of a distinct form and structure than is perhaps expected.
This is a six track EP, all varying in shade and tempo, but the other stand out piece is 'Mia Farrow'. Named after the actress made famous by her staring role in 'Rosemary's Baby', the track bubbles along slowly, reminiscent of a darker scene in David Lynch's 'Eraserhead', before seemingly emerging into the light with a heavenly droning. Almost human at points, the track conveys an almost historic fear, indescribable in words but all too apparent in audio form. 'Mia Farrow'' also seems to take great influence from David Bowie and Brian Eno on their records 'Low' and "Heroes", conveying a sense of time and place, at once specific and eternal.
Communicating in this manner, that is without words or human contact, will always be difficult, if not impossible. Clark, whilst not deliberately esoteric does require a great deal of imagination and commitment to enjoy to the fullest. For some this is the only manner in which interaction is possible, detached from the crude and bludgeoning restraints of language and utterly specific in meaning, but for others it will remain a Rubik's Cube, a mysterious puzzle, but ultimately unrewarding when deciphered.
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