Electronic musician Clark has announced the release of his tenth studio album, Sus Dog, and shared a new single, Dismissive.
Released through his own label Throttle Records, Sus Dog finds the former Warp Records mainstay centring a record around his voice for the first time. The album is said to be executive produced by Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, who also acted as a mentor throughout the writing process and contributed vocals and bass to the song Medicine.
"Chris wrote me to say he’d started singing, looking for feedback/advice or whatever, cuz it was kind of new shark-infested waters for him. I’ve been into what he does for years, and I ended up being a kind of backseat driver as he pieced all the oddness of it together, which was fascinating", Yorke says of the collaboration.
"I wasn’t surprised to discover he came at singing and words through another door completely, which to me was the most interesting and exciting part," Yorke continues. "The first thing he sent me was him singing about being stuck between two floors and I was already sold. To me the way he approached it all wasn’t the usual singer songwriter guff thank god; it mirrored the way he approached all his composition and recording, but this time it had a human face. His face."
The vocal-led project is said to be something of a stylistic left turn for Clark, whose previous work has been focused on synth-heavy, beat-driven electronica. "I kept on thinking ‘what would it sound like if The Beach Boys took MDMA and made a rave record?'", Clark says of the thinking behind the album's conception.
"It’s a lifetime’s worth of listening to songs and working out how to make them, tuning into how to customise all the other elements to my tastes. It feels like my debut, in a way", he continues.
"Sus Dog is about unknowing, non defensiveness, beginner's mind. Discovery. The idea of being telepathic is seductive but a bit dangerous. It’s all contingent, we're animals with minds more like morphing vapour than anything solid. Constantly becoming/changing. Sus Dog is a dedication to the love of that process. I’ve written a bunch of love songs, ha never thought I'd say that."
Sus Dog is scheduled for release May 26.
Watch the video for Clutch Pearlers below.
Stream Dismissive or preorder Sus Dog on Clark's Bandcamp.
Revisit our Classic Album feature on Clark's Body Riddle.
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