Anne Clark
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Anne Clark
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| Born on May 14, 1960, in Croydon, South London, England. Booked punk and new wave acts at the Warehouse Theatre, late-1970s and early-1980s; signed with the Virgin group, released The Sitting Room EP, 1982; released Joined Up Writing, 1984; released Hopeless Cases, 1987; released The Law Is An Anagram Of Wealth, 1993; released tribute album, Just After Sun-set—The Poetry Of R.M. Rilke, 1998. Addresses: Record company—Indigo Records. Website—Anne Clark Official website: http://www.anneclark.com. |
Songwriter, singer
Although her roots date back to the punk rock and new wave eras, Anne Clark, through collaborations with other artists and a willingness to experiment, explored a varied musical territory. "For me as a writer I switch from every emotion, from A to Z," she commented to Bernard Van Isacker for SideLine magazine. "And maybe A is gentle and quiet and Z an angry, violent or extreme emotion. We are constantly changing, we are never exactly the same. So it makes perfect sense to me that my music shouldn’t remain constantly the same."
Seemingly by instinct, Clark was never one to follow prescribed notions about artistic expression and culture. Born on May 14, 1960, in Croydon, South London, England, to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Clark felt alienated from social life as a teen and took refuge in art, books, and music to find a sense of connection. At the age of 16, Clark, desiring practical involvement in the world around her, left school in search of a more active education. Although her appetite for literature and music continued to escalate, Clark soon realized that she needed to make a living. Thus, she took a number of jobs, including working as a care assistant in a psychiatric hospital just outside London.
After this, Clark found a job more directly related to music at Bonaparte’s—Bromley, South London’s premiere record store and independent label. Her timing could not have been better as the punk scene was just about to explode in London. With the emergence of punk rock, Clark—who shared in punk’s disregard for formal institutions and traditional means of self expression—finally found a place where she felt she fit in. Suddenly, so many young people, regardless of social standing or level of education and formal training, were discovering ways to express themselves. Some formed bands, while others turned to writing, dancing, and the theater.
Inspired by punk’s entirely new take on music, art, and society in general, Clark decided to branch out from her record store job. Located next door to Bonaparte’s was the Warehouse Theatre, a venue that had been struggling financially to stay afloat for some time. For well over a year, Clark pleaded with the Warehouse to support an idea she had—to put on music, dance, and theater acts from the emerging punk and new wave scene. Although wary about the concept at first, the owners eventually conceded, and for nearly two years, Clark worked as an unpaid administrator at the Warehouse. While in this position, she booked sell-out shows for acts such as Paul Weller, Linton Kwesi-Johnson, the Durutti Column, French & Saunders, and Ben Watt of Everything But the Girl.
During this time, Clark additionally served as co-editor of Weller’s Riot Stories, a publishing company set up to advance the work of young, unknown writers. This enterprise led an established publisher, Faber, to issue
an anthology of young writers’ work titled Hard Lines, which was re-printed three times. As for her own writing, Clark took on several television projects for the British Broadcasting Corporation. She also wrote the script for a Channel 4 film called Sketch For Someone, which featured contributions from Patrik Fitzgerald and the Durutti Column.
All the while, Clark had been experimenting with text and instrumentation, taking decisive steps toward making music. With backing provided by the local band A Cruel Memory, she made her spoken-word performance debut at Richard Strange’s Cabaret Futura in London with Depeche Mode and gained a respectable following for subsequent shows. These early poetry recitations, according to Chris Lark in Rock: The Rough Guide, were "as gripping as the work of earlier punk-scene spoken-word stars Patti Smith and John Cooper Clarke."
Clark’s tales about urban decay and everyday problems set to the moody drums and keyboards of A Cruel Memory resulted in a record deal with the Virgin label Schallplatten GmbH, which issued her debut recording, The Sitting Room, in 1982. For this solid, haunt-ingly atmospheric EP, Clark collaborated with the first of numerous songwriting partners, A Cruel Memory’s Dominic Appleton, formerly of This Mortal Coil and Breathless.
On her follow-up, Changing Places LP in 1983, Clark teamed with keyboardist David Harrow, an old friend from her days at the Warehouse Theatre. The two musicians clicked immediately, and through their shared fascination with keyboards, synths, and samples, Clark and Harrow developed sounds that would inspire the techno movement some ten years later. A startling departure from Clark’s first recording, Changing Places featured Harrow’s inventive keyboard riffing on one side and Vini Reilly’s (of the Durutti Column) cinematic guitar work on the other, while Clark herself revealed a maturing poetic talent, as evidenced on tracks such as "Wallies" and "Sleeper in Metropolis."
Combining the solemness of The Sitting Room with the pre-techno stylings of Changing Places, Clark, aided by Harrow as well as pianist Virginia Astley, returned in 1984 with the six-song EP Joined Up Writing. Although it became one of Clark’s most notable records, featured her well-known song "Our Darkness," and helped to establish her music outside of England, Virgin, insisting on bigger sales, moved the artist to the more commercial 10 Records label. Paired with producer John Foxx, a founding member of Ultravox, Clark returned in 1985 with the more polished Pressure Points album. Still, Clark’s work failed to sell in significant numbers.
Thus, Clark returned to working with Harrow and a new keyboardist, Charlie Morgan, who helped her produce Hopeless Cases released in 1987. Here, Clark made observations about life ranging from sexual healing ("Homecoming") to romantic frustration ("Hope Road"), again setting her words to spacious synth arrangements. Hopeless Cases remains a favorite among Clark’s fans.
Despite an increase in sales throughout Europe, Hopeless Cases went largely overlooked in the United Kingdom, as did its follow-up R.S.V.P in 1988, recorded live in Holland. But selling millions of records has never been Clark’s primary concern. "I haven’t got anything against being commercial or successful," she told Van Isacker, "but there has to be room for other things." Virgin, however, saw things differently, inevitably deciding to drop Clark from its roster.
By now weary of the music business in England, Clark moved to Norway, where she made her home for the next three years. Subsequently, she returned to the United Kingdom, settling in the English countryside. After relocating, Clark met formally trained Norwegian musicians Ida Baalsrud and Tov Ramstad, whose backgrounds centered around jazz, classical, and folk music. Collaborations with Baalsrud and Ramstad came to fruition with the 1991 release Unstill Life, which revealed a more traditional and classically-inspired sound, though Morgan returned for contributions to some tracks. In the early part of 1992, Clark and Morgan reunited for another project. But tragically, the pair’s work was suspended that summer when Morgan was stricken with terminal cancer; he died in December of 1992 at the age of 36.
After taking some months off to mourn the loss of her friend and contemplate her next career move, Clark contacted Ramstad to work on a new album. Joined by Andy Bell, Paul Downing, and Eyeless In Gaza vocalist Martyn Bates in addition to Ramstad, Clark arrived with her most sophisticated work to date, The Law Is An Anagram Of Wealth. Released in 1993, the album brought to light Clark’s Neoclassical leanings as well as her previous synth sounds. The Law Is An Anagram Of Wealth also saw Clark covering the work of others for the first time—specifically, dramatic readings of the poetry of Friedrich Ruckert mixed with original music.
For her next tour, Clark opted to remove most of the electronics and machinery and focus on acoustic instrumentation. A new album recorded by Friedrich Thein at a show in Berlin, The Psychometry Album, was released in 1994 that featured these live, stripped-down versions of earlier songs. Her next album and last for the SPV label, To Love And Be Loved in 1995, also employed acoustic elements, together with drifting waves of electronics and vocals.
In 1997, some of Europe’s top dance music producers and remixers—including Sven Väth, Hardfloor, Total Eclipse, Juno Reactor, and Mouse On Mars—acknowledged Clark’s importance with The Wordprocessing — The Remix Album, featuring re-workings of her influential material. The greatest example of Clark’s artistry, however, remains Just After Sunset—The Poetry of R.M. Rilke. Released in 1998 on her new label, Indigo, the album pays tribute through sublime musical meditations to one of her personal literary heroes.
Selected discography
The Sitting Room (EP), Schallplatten GmbH, 1982.
Changing Places, Schallplatten GmbH, 1983.
Joined Up Writing (EP), Schallplatten GmbH, 1984.
Pressure Points, 10, 1985.
Hopeless Cases, 10, 1987.
R.S.V.P (live album), 10, 1988.
Unstill Life, SPV, 1991.
The Law Is An Anagram Of Wealth, SPV, 1993.
The Psychometry Album, SPV, 1994.
To Love And Be Loved, SPV, 1995.
Just After Sunset—The Poetry of R.M. Rilke, Indigo, 1998.
Sources
Books
Buckley, Jonathan, and others, editors, Rock: The Rough Guide, Rough Guides Ltd., 1999.
Periodicals
SideLine, August 1998.
Online
Anne Clark Official Website, http://www.anneclark.com (January 10, 2001).
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Anne Clark
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Anne Clark
- Genres: Rock
Biography
A unique figure in British music, Anne Clark is a singer and lyricist who works in both electronic and acoustic music, performing literate but emotionally charged songs of contemporary life.Clarke was born in the South London community of Croydon on May 14, 1960. A bright and restless youth, she left school at the age of 16, and after taking on a variety of odd jobs she began working at Bonaparte Records, an independent record shop that also released discs through an offshoot label. Clark immersed herself in the nascent punk and new wave music scene, and started booking events at the nearby Warehouse Theater, presenting a variety of cutting-edge music, poetry, and comedy. She was also an editor at Paul Weller's short-lived publishing house Riot Stories, and helped assemble an anthology of new authors for Faber & Faber, Hard Lines, which was a considerable success. In time, Clark began writing her own songs and performing at London clubs, making her live debut at Richard Strange's Cabaret Futura. In 1982, she released her first album, The Sitting Room, in which she worked with Dominic Appleton of This Mortal Coil. On her second LP, 1983's Changing Places, she began collaborating with keyboard player David Harrow, whose pulsating synthesizer work gave Clark's songs a compelling yet hard-edged electronic sheen that suited the often-alienated tone of her lyrics. Harrow's electronics would dominate many of Clark's best-known releases, but she also collaborated frequently with classically trained pianist Charlie Morgan (he co-wrote and played on the album Hopeless Cases), as well as recording with John Foxx of Ultravox and Martyn Bates of Eyeless in Gaza (the latter on a collection of songs adapted from poems by Rainer Maria Rilke). Beginning in 1987, Clark spent three years in Norway, where she worked on a variety of projects with musicians Tov Ramstad and Ida Baalsrud, and then returned to the U.K. and resumed collaborating with Morgan, a partnership that ended in 1992 with the pianist's death. In 1994, Clark turned away from electronics to take an acoustic band on the road (the tour was documented on the live album Psychometry), and folk and art music influences began dominating her work. However, as more new electronic artists began citing Clark's work with Harrow as an influence, she began recording new electronic pieces, as well as allowing new acts to sample elements from her catalog. After taking time off to return to school, Clark returned to music in 2001, forming a new acoustic group with guitarist Jeff Aug, percussionist Tobias Haas, pianist Murat Parlak, cellist Jann Michael Engel, and Steve Schroyder on keyboards and programming. Clark also gave permission to the Belgian electronic group Implant to remix some of her songs, leading to an active collaboration between the two on their album Self-Inflicted, in which she sings two songs she wrote. In 2008, after releasing a number of live recordings, remix projects, and interpretations of the work of other writers, Clark issued her first set of new original songs in over a decade, The Smallest Acts of Kindness, and in 2010, she took a step towards creative self-sufficiency by launching her own label, After Hours Productions. ~ Mark Deming, RoviWikipedia on Answers.com:
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Anne Clark
For other people named Anne Clark, see Anne Clark (disambiguation).
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| Anne Clark | |
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 Anne Clark live in concert (Castle Party festival) in Poland 2008 |
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| Background information | |
| Born | 14 May 1960 |
| Origin | Croydon, London, England |
| Genres | New Wave, Dark Wave, electronic, avant-garde |
| Occupations | Poet, singer, songwriter |
| Years active | 1982–present |
| Labels |
Red Flame (Ink) |
| Associated acts | Eyeless in Gaza, Martyn Bates |
| Website | www.anneclarkofficial.com |
Anne Clark (born 14 May 1960, Croydon, London, England) is an English poet[1] and songwriter. Her first album, The Sitting Room, was released in 1982, and she has released over a dozen albums since then.
Her experimental music occupies a region bounded roughly by electronic, dance (techno applies on occasion) and possibly avant-garde genres, with varying hard as well as romantic and orchestral styles.
Clark is mainly a spoken word artist. Many of her lyrics deal critically with the imperfections of humanity, everyday life, and politics. Especially in her early works she has created a gloomy, melancholy kind of atmosphere bordering on weltschmerz.
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Contents
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Early life
Anne Clark was born the daughter of an Irish mother and a Scottish father. At the age of 16, she left school. She took various jobs, one of which was as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. Clark then got a job at the local record store (and label), Bonaparte Records. Punk rock was finding its way into London's music scene and perfectly matched Anne Clark's emotions.
Clark soon became involved with the Warehouse Theatre, an independently financed stage for bands, that was always low on cash. Although the theater's owners initially objected to the strange, pierced punk scene characters and their leather outfits, Anne was able to successfully arrange the program. Anne Clark managed to fill the theatre with artists like Paul Weller, Linton Kwesi Johnson, French & Saunders, The Durutti Column, Ben Watt (who is now a member of Everything But The Girl), and many others. She experimented with music and lyrics herself and first appeared on stage in Richard Strange's Cabaret Futura with Depeche Mode.
Career
In 1982, Anne Clark published her first album, The Sitting Room, with songs written by herself. On the following albums, Changing Places (1983), Joined up Writing (1984) and Hopeless Cases (1987), Clark benefited from an acquaintance from the Warehouse: keyboardist David Harrow contributed as the co-author. The songs created by this team, such as “Sleeper in Metropolis,” “Our Darkness,” and “Wallies,” have since been considered milestones of the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1985, Clark released the album Pressure Points. It was created in collaboration with John Foxx, who wrote the music and plays on the first five tracks..
In 1987, Clark went to Norway for three years, where she worked with Tov Ramstad and Ida Baalsrud, among others. In cooperation with Charlie Morgan, she released the album Unstill Life in 1991 on SPV Records. Tracks included The Moment, Unstill Life, Abuse and Empty Me. This album was also released in the USA on Radikal Records. During 1992, she released a non-album collaboration on maxi-CD (SPV) with Ida Baalsrud, who both played the violin part and co-wrote If I Could; furthermore, there was also a remix of Our Darkness included on the last track of the CD. At the very end of 1992, in December, Charlie Morgan unexpectedly died of cancer at the age of only 36, which caused many planned collaboration projects to be abandoned.
After several months of reorientation, Clark eventually released The Law is an Anagram of Wealth in 1993, once again in collaboration with Tov Ramstad; the other musicians involved were Paul Downing, Martyn Bates (of the band Eyeless in Gaza), and Andy Bell (not of Erasure fame but talented musician and programmer) and completed a major European Tour.
Just one year later, in 1994, Anne Clark ventured into a style that she had not experimented with before: acoustic music. This eventually culminated in the release of Psychometry (1994), which featured a concert recorded live on stage in the Passionskirche in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
Continuously, Clark went on following her musical roots and the influences of folk and classical music. Her 1998 album, Just After Sunset, a collaboration with Martyn Bates, featured poems by German poet Rainer Maria Rilke translated into English. This album was re-released four years later in 2002 when Clark regained the rights to the album. The re-release included some additional video footage, although it was of rather poor quality.
In 2003, another album joined her series of acoustic albums: From The Heart - Live In Bratislava, which she recorded together with Murat Parlak (vocals/piano), Jann Michael Engel (cello), Niko Lai (drums and percussion) and Jeff Aug (guitars) in Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
In 2005, Clark joined up with the Belgian act Implant for the album Self-inflicted, on which she delivered guest vocals. The album was released via Alfa Matrix Records, which in the meantime had become her home label outside of Germany. She also appeared on the Implant EP Too Many Puppies.
2006 saw Clark back again in the recording studio with Implant for the EP Fade Away, on which she delivered guest vocals and performed a duet with Leæther Strip's Claus Larsen. And she also appeared on the album Audioblender by Implant, again released via the Alfa Matrix record label.
In 2008 Clark was in Germany to record her next album The Smallest Act of Kindness, which was released in September 2008. At the end of 2010, Anne Clark released the first chapter of an on-going project Past & Future Tense, the first release on her own label, After Hours Productions.
In January 2011 Anne contributed an arrangement of the Charles Baudelaire poem Enivrez-Vous (Be Drunk) to the audio book and radio play Die künstlichen Paradiese ("The artificial paradises"), (Hörbuch Hamburg/Radio Bremen).
Band
Current live band members:
- Anne Clark, Vocals
- Jeff Aug, Guitarist
- Tobias Haas, Drums & Percussion
- Murat Parlak, Piano
- Jann Michael Engel, Cello
- Steve Schroyder, Keyboards & Programming
Discography
Albums
- 1982 – The Sitting Room (UK: Red Flame, Germany: Virgin Schallplatten, later: Virgin/EMI; LP)
- 1983 – Changing Places (UK: Red Flame, Germany: Virgin Schallplatten, later: Virgin/EMI; LP)
- 1984 – Joined Up Writing (UK: Ink, later: Virgin/EMI; EP)
- 1985 – Pressure Points (UK: Ten, Germany: Virgin Schallplatten; later: Virgin/EMI; LP)
- 1987 – Hopeless Cases (UK: Ten; Germany: Virgin Schallplatten, later: Virgin/EMI; LP)
- 1988 – R.S.V.P. (UK: Ten; Germany: Virgin Schallplatten, later: Virgin/EMI; LP – recorded live at the Music Centrum, Utrecht, Holland, 1987)
- 1991 – Unstill Life (SPV, later: Virgin/EMI; LP/CD)
- 1993 – The Law Is An Anagram Of Wealth (Germany: SPV; CD)
- 1994 – Anne Clark and friends: Psychometry (SPV, later: Virgin/EMI; CD – Live at the Passionskirche Berlin)
- 1995 – To Love And Be Loved (SPV, later: Warner Chappell; CD)
- 1997 – Wordprocessing: The Remix Project (Columbia Europe/Sony BMG, later: Warner Chappell; CD)
- 1998 – Anne Clark & Martyn Bates: Just After Sunset – The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (Labor/Indigo, later: Warner Chappell, re-release 2002: netMusicZone; CD)
- 2003 – From the Heart – Live in Bratislava (netMusicZone – Recorded at the studios of Slovak National Radio Broadcast during the European acoustic tour on 17 November 2002)
- 2004 – Notes Taken, Traces Left (netMusicZone – Audiobook, song lyrics and commentary from Anne Clark's book)
- 2008 – The Smallest Acts of Kindness (netMusicZone)
Singles
- 1984 – Sleeper in Metropolis (Rough Trade Germany)
- 1984 – Our Darkness (miscellaneous, licensed from Red Flame)
- 1984 – Self Destruct (Germany: Ten)
- 1985 – Sleeper in Metropolis (Remix with David Harrow) (UK: Ink)
- 1985 – Wallies (UK: Ink)
- 1985 – Heaven (UK: Ten; Germany: Virgin Schallplatten)
- 1986 – True Love Tales (UK: Ink)
- 1987 – Hope Road (UK: Ten)
- 1987 – Homecoming (UK: Ten, Germany: Virgin Schallplatten)
- 1988 – Our Darkness/Sleeper in Metropolis/Self Destruct (UK: Ink)
- 1990 – Abuse (Germany: SVP)
- 1991 – Counter Act (SVP)
- 1991 – Counter Act (Remixes) (SPV; single/EP)
- 1992 – If I Could/Our Darkness (Remix) (SPV)
- 1993 – The Haunted Road: Travelogue Mixes (SPV)
- 1994 – Elegy For A Lost Summer (SPV)
- 1994 – Elegy For A Lost Summer (Remix) (SPV)
- 1996 – Letter Of Thanks To A Friend (SPV; Bill Laswell remixes)
- 1997 – Our Darkness ('97 Remixes) (Columbia Records/Sony BMG)
- 1997 – Sleeper In Metropolis ('97 Remixes) (Gang Go, Columbia Records/Sony BMG)
- 1998 – Wallies (Night of the Hunter) ('98 Remixes) (Columbia Records/Sony BMG)
- 2002 – Blank & Jones featuring Anne Clark: The Hardest Heart (Gang Go/Warner)
- 2003 – Sleeper In Metropolis 3000 (Gang Go/Warner)
- 2008 – Full Moon (netMusicZone)
Compilations
- 1986 – An Ordinary Life (UK: Great Expectations/Ink; 15 tracks drawn from her first three albums LP/CD)
- 1986 – Trilogy (UK: Ink; compilation of the first three albums, omits two tracks from Joined Up Writing; CD)
- 1986 – Terra Incognita (Spain: Ink; LP)
- 1991 – The Last Emotion (Beehive Productions; 3 CD box set: The Sitting Room/Changing Places/Joined Up Writing)
- 1994 – The Best of Anne Clark (UK: Beehive Productions)
- 1996 – Anne Clark: Nineties - a Fine Collection (Germany: Steamhammer, later: SPV; CD)
- 2003 – Dream Made Real (Noble Price/TIM)
- 2007 – Remix Collection (netMusicZone)
- 2010 - Past & Future Tense Chapter One (After Hours Productions/Believe Digital)
- 2011 - "Die Künstlichen Paradiese" (Hörbuch Hamburg/Radio Bremen)
Videos
- 1992 – Iron Takes the Place of Air: Live in Berlin (SPV; Live Video, VHS)
- 2008 - 2009 Anne Clark Live at Frankfurter Hof, Mainz (MMM Film GMBH)
Further reading
- Anne Clark: Notes Taken, Traces Left. Fotografien – Texte – Interviews. Edited by Jeff Aug, translated by Martin Müncheberg. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2003. ISBN 978-3-89602-463-3. (328 pages, in English and German)
References
- ^ Hartmann, Olga Yael (May 17, 2000). "Anne Clark's poetic technology". Jerusalem Post: p. 11. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/jpost/access/53864273.html?dids=53864273:53864273&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=May+17%2C+2000&author=OLGA+YAEL+HARTMANN&pub=Jerusalem+Post&desc=Anne+Clark's+poetic+technology&pqatl=google. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
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Mentioned in
To Love and Be Loved/The Law Is an Anagram of Wealth
(2003 Album by Anne Clark)
Tracks of Time
(1998 Album by Thistle Dew)
The Best of Anne Clark
(1994 Album by Anne Clark)
The Nineties: A Fine Collection
(2000 Album by Anne Clark)
Kerrville Folk Festival: 1984
(1984 Album by Various Artists)
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