Albums by this artist

Clarence Park (2001)

Chris Clark

Clarence Park

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» WILL CRAVEN | STAFF WRITER

Chris Clark Clarence Park Warp, 2001 RiYL: Aphex Twin, U-Ziq, Mouse On Mars

While the opening song, "Pleen 1930s," comes and goes as ephemerally as a dream, track two, "The Dogs," announces the beginning of Clarence Park, Chris Clark's (he's going by "Clark" alone these days) debut album on Warp Records. "The Dogs" is made up of clicks, grunts, and hectored hip-hop syncopations so brazenly present that one is reminded of a new and advanced version of ice hockey. The duality of these two tracks is replicated in the layout of Clarence Park itself, with brief warm fuzzies serving as ambient interludes amidst larger, more brilliant constructions.

Songs like "Proper Lofi" or "Bricks" mine the mainstream, lick-oriented sound of Warp's turn-of-the-century releases. The tracks measure themselves in rock metrics, avoid repetition by breaking down the hook into both its biggest bang and its smallest whimper, often explore the metaphysical "history" of the beat within a pop song's middle eight and then return to its thesis statement by the finish. One is hard pressed to find fault in the format: crisp, pristine sounds delivered in a familiar and accessible package.

Often one synthesizer line provides spinal structure to tangentially evolving rhythms, as in the carefree late-'80s R&B pop of "Lord Of The Dance." Other times the power dynamic is reversed, with a relatively static beat underwriting divergent takes on a melodic theme. Every track is tethered to the former or the latter; rarely is the listener cast into wilderness from both ends.

"Diesel Raven" is the last of the high-octane hunting expeditions, in which a lean but athletic synth line articulates itself over a driving beat, then tries the beat in backpedal, and finally over no beat at all, before ceding the beat to itself. Warp built its reputation on this robustly simple template: changing gears within pieces that are legitimately "songs."

The result is quality electronic product, a grade of gentlemen's "good" that renders wordy reviewers like myself obsolete and may have listeners dancing in their bedrooms without a guitar in the air.

WILL CRAVEN |