Chris Clark, or just plain Clark for the purposes of his musical career, signed to experimental electronic music label Warp in 2001, and is seen by many as the most 'Warp-ish' act on the independent label's current roster. He is set to release the third of a trilogy of albums, 'Totems Flare' on 13 Jul. To celebrate the release, he is playing a live show at Koko in London on 4 Jul, alongside the stellar line-up of Plaid, Luke Vibert, Tim Exile and Grasscut. Ahead of that show, we spoke to Clark to ask him our Same Six Questions.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
Mainly from not feeling satisfied with what everyone else was up to as a teenager. Electronics weren't so common back in those days, and that was why they appealed. I had three lessons on the drums and told my teacher I was going to get a drum machine and he looked so disgusted that it made me want to explore that side of music even more.

Of course the irony is now that I feel like a black sheep amongst electronica producers - my love of mid range and instrumentation, not necessarily guitars, but certainly live drums and keys, has put me at odds with the purists. I just can't see any virtue in limiting your palette to one set of uber-conditioning genre rules. This isn't about equipment, or grand-scale production, it's still all done at home on pretty cheap gear but I still approach it with that attitude: hip hop, rave, electronics, live-band instrumentation - tt should all go into the melting pot.

It's only a pigeon holing media that puts up these boundaries in the first place. I don't mean this to sound cocky but I managed to record drums and turn them into breaks quality samples on 'Body Riddle'. With this new one it's more about the synths, they've got plenty of rock n' roll in them. It certainly isn't minimal techno.

Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Realising that some of the structures of tunes I was hitting on hadn't been really explored before, certainly in my own work, and perhaps amongst other people's too. Feeling dissatisfied with "clever" chopped up break beat music, and realising you could get past that with danceable 250 BPM kraut-rock grooves. Watching people go mental to it in the clubs I play at is very invigorating.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
It's invariably the reduction that takes discipline and perseverance. I've never found it hard to continually write tracks. An album is usually whittled down from about 100 tunes. It's always editing down that involves the stern eyebrows and caffeine.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Film director Michael Haneke said this really interesting thing that I always go back to, about always going in at the latest possible moment with a scene. And then finishing it as soon as possible. Of course this is bearing in mind you have said what you intend to say. Once that's done, there is no excuse for lingering.

Quite often films and books inspire more then music does, although I've recently gone on a filthy Bleep splurge. Books wise, I got turned onto Derek Raymond, this British crime author. A total pioneer, his stories are like narrative crack. He had a pretty fucked up life though. Harrowing stuff.

Music wise, mainly my friends' tunes inspire the most. Bibio in particular. Some of his new bass-dance-club tracks are awesome. Up there with any of the new Hyper-dub tunes, but he doesn't need to rinse it on this front cause he's got his own voice in songcraft too. It's his range. You can't deny it, it's vast.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Experienced best as 320kbps MP3 at full volume on Sennheiser in-ear headphones (the £30 ones). No preset EQ. I'm happy with my own EQ thanks!

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
I really want to get some synths and amps into the courtyard of my flat. It's got this amazing dense reverb. If you played loads of hi notes and slowed it down by four octaves on tape it would sound like the world was howling itself to death. Not sure how my landlord would feel about it though. We don't get on, he and I.

published july 2009