Introduction
Did not monks lacerate themselves to atone for sins? To starve off evil desires? Musician Christopher Clark has released a trilogy of crunchy, genre-less electronic albums over the course of four years. These albums are self-laceration. For what unifies these three albums is extreme musical intensity born of introspection. These albums attempt to exorcise personal demons with soul lacerating dissonance and merciless beats. Each album exorcises a different demon: Body Riddle (2006) deals with interpersonal pain, Turning Dragon (2008) attempts to loose the fleshly self in pushing through the cerebral self-denial, Totem's Flare (2009) tries to expiate the subject from his guilt by mockery. I shall argue about each in turn.
Body Riddle
Body Riddle has been noted to be opposite what it should, but it still works as it should. Abstraction grounds the listener (e.g. Herzog), earthy trumpets and mouthy sounds raise the listener to abstraction: nebulous emotions (e.g. Roulette Thrift Run). We will run through the album track by track. The argument will be this: in the apparent aloofness and inversion of feeling Clark knows himself to be evading a problem he cannot escape, the loss of a loved one. It ends with that admission, and with a sigh of relief it ends in misery.
1. Herr Bar
Opening with a beat, we have bells giving a slight mesmerizing quality and accompanying drums to carry the odd bells into the immediate passions of our psyche. A bone rattling sound appears from time to time. Perhaps a reminder of death? The three sounds join in the end in a crescendo. This fades and blends into the next song.
2. Frau Wave
This one begins at the ending of Herr Bar. Jazzy drums and string instruments propel the plot. It is very abstract. Yearning and dying strings appear here and there. It ends with the sound of ping pong balls bouncing leading to an optimistic building tone.
3. Springtime Epigram
This song is a bit tired. It's repetitive. It's almost as if it is rewinding to review a scene.
4. Herzog
Here abstraction reigns. Synth goes to the sky. However the synth is much calmer that all that which came before. It is soothing, while it builds into a beat and gathers energy. It reminds me of someone reminding himself to stay calm upon the abstract principle that calmness allows one to keep his head. You have a clock ticking quickly that the synth drowns out from time to time. So there's order attempted. However, it ends in rolling symbols and the sound of beating chains. So the attempt at self-soothing fell apart.
5. Ted
This
song is perhaps the darkest thus far. It is very synthy too, but this one has a heavy beat. The beat comes with a chain sound. It sounds as if a beast was unleashed. And the beast prowls.
6. Roulette Thrift Run
Imagine walking into a casino rabid and letting all your passions out in an orgy of self-expression. That is the experience given here. It is playful, but darkly playful. There are plosive mouthy sounds that join the drums. It feels very fleshly and very. Perhaps the author has gritted his teeth too long, and decided that his emotions were too strong too keep in. He seeks to bury himself in immediate pleasure.
7. Vengence Drools
Now image that after your orgy you start feeling the provoking emotions ebb, but you don't want it to go away, so you push with concentrated passion. This passion is best described as driven by rage. The beat reminds me of rap done in dirty parts of the city, and hence, of the mind. In the middle, the beat calms into an ease. After it goes into an empty drone of morning awe-ful voices, gaping.
8. Dew on the Mouth
Here it gets strange. There is a short repeating ambient tone. Puppies are barking in the background. A sigh of some pained saddened monster lets loose. It ends like the sea receding before a great wave.
9. Matthew Unburdened
The great wave his with a beat and synth. Like a wave it goes through peaks and troths. At times the beat hits and stays for a while and crunches. Then a beat is also irregular. Along with the sighing drums is a string instrument synthed melancholic. The stringed interment calms the drums down, and eventually no beat remains, only starry tones and relaxed synth. Eventually a beat comes back, but it is more controlled.
10. Night Knuckles
Unlike all the others, this one is driven by chimes, not synth and not percussion. The starry bells that were lightly present throughout the album take over. The sound does not fit the tone of what went before. It is quite happy and carefree. At times, however, a small sirens scream lightly at times and whining pitches occur. Is all happy?
11. The Autumnal Crush
Drums beat lightly and erratically but with a purpose. A voice mumbles, "And I still miss you." The drums immediately grow by factors. And synthy organ repeats, and the drums are crazy. Again the music decibels increase by factors. The sound is overwhelming and chaotic, but repetitious. The passion bleeds out, and the crush ends in a four minute sigh.
Turning Dragon
Turning Dragon is a monster. Full of dark allies and many uncertain passages its frantic beat seeks escape. It starts at
135 BPM and does not let up until the end where slows into an epiphany in Penultimate Persian.
1. New Year Storm
In this album Clark's titles are easier to tie into the theme. It's a party. The four-on-the-floor slam shoves you into an all night new year's rave. A nice new year's celebration. Slowly giving way to a tired sound, another party starts to appear.
2. Volcan Veins
Cymbals ring. A steady beat breaks into a barely controlled momentum. A man is talking up some woman, you can't make out his words. And she is irresistibly falling for him. Their bodies are undoubtably are all over each other as they run to celebrate New Year's privately. Eventually the song reaches its ... erhmm ... climax. Yes, it's a literal climax. The woman yells grunts of pleasure, and after the climax, besides breathing noises she isn't heard of again. You hear the man make gloating noises. The scene flares out into a white noise. It's as a vacuum sucking.
3. Truncation Horn
Quickly, the sound transfers to a collage of noises. It's rather fragmented, but there is a beat. It ends rather goofily with crunchy video-game tones.
4. For Wolves Crew
Now we enter a very cerebral space. We aren't dealing with parties, sex, and guitar clips. No, the sounds are purely abstract, and so internal and subjective. We don't leave this space the entire album. (Note: I believe it would have been better to return to the social atmosphere to show how the epiphany affects the experiencer.)
A constant clear beat is held for the first half. Variations are made on a theme, in that the electric energy is discharged in ripping and compressed thunderclaps. It transitions slyly into a sort of electro-shuffle. Eventually organs start lifting the atmosphere. A ribbon like synth is bumped up and down erratically with the beat and there are dinky short piano sounds. It works oddly enough. The beat stops, yielding to the organ. The organ stops, yielding to a harp-like sound. The beat returns and yields to the next song.
5. Violenl
Very crunchy. Still cerebral. There's not much to say about this song. It's pretty weak.
6. Gaskarth / Cyrk Dedication
Gaskarth is the most unlistenable song. Listening to it makes you want to destroy the stereo or tear your ears out.
A soft beat (still at 135 BPM) is accompanied by a distant synthed xylophone that builds up and then builds down. Soon every other beat is hard with a chipper, impersonal cut to it. And then there is a electric sound like the crunching of controlled white noise. The softness, the crunchiness, the lighter impersonal sounds are hardly livable. Let us leave this place.
One is remind of those times you can't escape your head, but a dull beating of dissonance remains.
7. Ache of the North
We break into suppressed anger that vents out. The emotion and direction is welcomed. But it is still cerebral. It is still internal.
Like a furious beast looking for food in the arctic generating internal heat solely from its will to survive, the first half presses furiously. Thankfully, the second half morphs into an epiphany. The sounds ease. It's as if we have hit spiritual liquid water in an arctic desert.
8. Mercy Sines
Now we are in a period of solace. Sinusoidal waves wash over the ears and mind. As someone remembering past troubles in a period of relaxation, the song resumes the earlier pace. But then it relaxes.
9. Hot May Slides
Warmth almost comes to the surface here. It's as taking a bath in a hot spring. It ends. There's quiet, and a soft drums resumes the prior panic, but with some warmth. But there is warning tones in soft-bell sirens.
10. Beg
The prior war reemerges. The hero has had respite, but the final battle remains. "Beg" is a warlike song. It's ordered, but not personally affronting like "Gaskarth." It's more like the idea of fighting a battle. No real resolution is made. It ends softly with a rising, calming, and readying beat.
11. Penultimate Persion
No longer focused on beats, now organs hail entrance into a spiritual, techno haven. There are fun and games. All in a techno manner and in seriousness. Different movements proceed. And at the end they all converge into an epiphany. It is not personal, but an abstract calling lifts the listener to glimpse "truth." After this the song ends quickly and without ado.
Totems Flare
Totems Flare is at once darker and more goofy than its predecessors. Undoubably it is the weakest of the three. However badly they were pulled together, interesting ideas abound.
1. Outside Plume
We have an introduction. It contains elements of what is to follow. It's abstract and controlled. Very professional. A challenge opens. It has the air of a great game where the stakes are as immense as the challenge.
We enter.
2. Growls Garden
It begins with what seems to be nonsense poetry. A sort of incantation. "Winter/Sunbeam/Pray the/Cold ship of light." Then an aggressive voice spells your doom, "I will find you/In the garden/Slowly dying." Then the song enters a snowy apocalypse. The voice returns with the same message of doom again. It's all very aggressive and apocalyptic. It's as if all around me were dead, and I will soon be too.
3. Rainbow Voodoo
A child in a game store and a serial killer joyriding through the city; "Rainbow Voodoo" is a mix of these two. And that fact is with purpose. Here are the lyrics:
Go outside go outside don't turn around girl
Take me down to the rainbow grrrr
And I want to go inside
The molecule girl of a rainbow girl
Go inside a rainbow so rare
Sowing the bloom, inner plume, outer plume so
I take you on a ride
Then I wanna go inside
Then I wanna to go inside
Then I modify
The meaning seems obvious to me. The lyrics are pretty much nonsense, but the core of the idea is this: this singer is speaking of a women. He orders her around. He wants her to give him "the rainbow." What is this if not sex? It's a joyride. But it's only a joyride:
And I don't even know if it would be worth it in the long run
The elastic snags and wooden friendships die
It is not going to last because the man is afraid and has no belief in the relationship. The relationship is not real. But ...
But we can voodoo into shapes for all my gaping mind to see
But you can voodoo into shapes for all my gaping mind to see
Grnnnnnnn etc etc
It ends with more of the same murderous, joyful noises.
4. Look into the Heart Now
Mellow. Halfway through a synthesized voice starts speaking. It's hard to make out some of his words, though he does start repeating "Look into the heart now. Oh yeaaah! Look into the heart now. Never go back." So we do.
5. Luxman Furs
Somewhere this is not lovingly described as "Brittany Pop." I suppose I can hear something of late 90's Brittany, but only warped and distorted like a paper plate thrown into the dishwasher. It maintains a clear structure, and there are drums and a haunted house organ. I'm not sure what it contributes to the theme outside of the ending to lines, which sounds something like
Woman (whining):
"I just woke up. What are you trying to do to me? "
Man (weakly irritated):
"I'm sorry, I just ---"
Woman
"Yeah"
6. Totem Crackerjack
Now the house of cards starts toppling. Drums and organs keep a repetitive building and sighing but obviously going somewhere. In the middle of the song we have massive hype. A wheel-like siren spins. It quickens pace and pitch. Then drums. Drums. Drums. Fast and about to crash. Then they immediately transition to a happy, playful and light cliquy sound. A trumpet joins. Then synth grinds the excitement and release into your bones. It ends peacefully.
7. Future Daniel
Still happy. There is a buildup. Much the same as the end of the last song. However, at the three quarters mark the same sound remains, but we are in a dripping echoing cave. So we remain in the chthonic places of the mind.
8. Primary Balloon Landing
We are in a transition state. Nothing is fixed. Everything is hazy. The noises and music of a thousand ages are combined into an easy white noise. But it ends.
9. Talis
A threatening voice like that of Growls Garden returns. It is tired. It says,
I will find you.
Winter talisman.
Hiding beside me in the snow.
Fallen.
What does this mean? I'll hazard a guess. Perhaps the talisman gave him the happiness of the last few songs, but its magical properties were not endemic in his soul, and when lost, the world about him crashes and dying hope is invested in its return. The reality of a unsatisfactory life threatens return. The talisman is not found.
10. Suns of Temper
It starts on a thin wiry tone. Then it explodes into a fire. All is burning. Then a train whistle sounds faintly. Again it sounds. Again. And louder each time. Finally the burning subsides. The ominous siren fades, not to return. The end of the album? No. Music explodes and is dragged all over the asphalt. Again and again. A voice speaks. I can't easily make out what it says, but it seems thus:
"The side of me where you never go."
If this is what is said, I take it to mean nothing other than the admission that under his exterior a world like that of this album exists. The anger. The fear. The love of frivolity and mirage. The vanity of relationships. And it ends.
11. Absence
A spanish guitar plays a loop. The title describes it all. Absence is all that remains. The analysis of the self, the admission, left nowhere to go.
12. Chill Out DJ
This bonus track is more of the same. It starts pretty and gentle. And then it slowly is torn into shreds. At the end it is unlistenable like nails on a chalkboard.
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