Bleep

New single Branding Problem finds Clark in combative mode from the off. Even before you get to the music you realise that you’re in for an intense experience - Branding Problem’s artwork is an uncanny image typical of Clark’s aesthetic, while the press release shuns the idea that you could listen to these tracks as background music, imagines a techno-dystopian future and rounds out by proclaiming ‘BEHOLD THE CONTINUUM, HARDCORE WILL NEVER DIE’. Easy listening this most certainly is not.

The tracks themselves deliver in spades. ‘Branding Problem’ is one of those lumbering, unsettling mega-techno tracks that Clark does better than anyone else. A synth motif turns itself inside-out across the course of ‘Branding Problem’s near-six-minute runtime, beginning as a sort of lopsided garage thing and ending up in Eski’s leftfield. Like much of Clark’s work, ‘Branding Problem' is ambitious and proggy yet also retains a firm dancefloor focus throughout.

B-side ‘Legacy Pet’ is a mite more regular. With its needling synths and slamming breakbeats, ‘Legacy Pet’ could quite easily have slotted into the tracklist of Daniel Avery’s recent Song For Alpha LP. Special Request’s rave revivalism is also apparent, though the stakes feel higher here than they do in Paul Woolford’s mischievous productions.

Clark comes out all guns blazing on Branding Problem, the latest release through his own Throttle label.