Anne Charlotte Clark (born 14 May 1960) is an English poet, singer and songwriter.[1] Her first album, The Sitting Room, was released in 1982, and she has released over a dozen albums since then.
Her poetry work with experimental musicians 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 created a gloomy, melancholy atmosphere bordering on weltschmerz. She has been considered one of the pioneers in the spoken-word music genre, as well as being acclaimed for her synth-pop and new wave music, especially across Europe.
Early life
Clark was born the daughter of a Roman Catholic Irish mother, Cecilia, and a mixed Scottish and Welsh Protestant father, Herbert. She has one brother, John and mentions in her spoken biography 'Notes Taken Traces Left' that her mother also had another son who died shortly after being born. Clark recollects her childhood in her spoken biography as being "troubled but loving at the same time". 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 worked at a local record store (and label), Bonaparte Records. Punk rock was finding its way into London's music scene and matched her emotions.
Clark became involved with the Warehouse Theatre, an independently financed stage for bands, that was low on cash. Although the theatre's owners initially objected to the strange, pierced punk scene characters and their leather outfits, she was able to successfully arrange the program. Clark managed to fill the theatre with artists like Paul Weller, Linton Kwesi Johnson, French & Saunders, The Durutti Column, Ben Watt (who later became 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.
Clark worked with Paul Weller to help set up Riot Stories. He had put up an article[where?] about helping young writers that were unable to be signed up to major record labels. Clark said that at first the relationship was troubled due to him not replying to her letters. She announced "After a pretty heated letter calling out his rudeness, I received one back in the same tone." Clark subsequently said that the relationship ended up being a strong one, which still exists today.[citation needed]
Career
In 1982, Clark published her first album, The Sitting Room, with songs written by herself, the album placed in 11th place on The Top 100 Albums of 1983.[2] 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 all the music as the co-author and producer. The music created by Harrow that Clark read poetry to, such as "Sleeper in Metropolis," "Our Darkness," and "Wallies," have since been considered[by whom?] milestones of the 1980s and 1990s. David Harrow's music of "Our Darkness" is sampled in Benny Benassi's 2003 hit "Love is Gonna Save Us".[citation needed]
Our Darkness has been considered by Fact magazine as one of the 20 best industrial records of all time. Fact describe it as "An influential proto-house record".[3] Clark mentions in her autobiography Notes Taken Traces Left that she has no vivid memory of the creative phase of Our Darkness however, clearly remembers the exact time and place of writing the words to her other club anthem hit Sleeper in Metropolis. Clark was set to start touring in the United States in the late 1980s, however, was subsequently in disagreements with Richard Branson which led her breakthrough in America to be cancelled. Nevertheless, Clark has become a well respected artist across Europe, especially in Germany where she has a cult following.[citation needed]
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.. The album features the song Heaven which was considered a moderately successful hit across Europe.
In 1987, Clark went to Norway for three years, where she worked with Tov Ramstad and Ida Baalsrud, among others. In co-operation 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. In December 1992, Charlie Morgan unexpectedly died of cancer at the age of 36, which caused many planned collaboration projects to be abandoned.[citation needed]
Anne Clark live in concert (M'era Luna Festival) in Hildesheim (Germany) 2004
After several months of reorientation, Clark eventually released The Law is an Anagram of Wealth in 1993, once again in collaboration with other musicians and completed a major European Tour.[citation needed]
In 1994, 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.
Clark continuously followed 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.[according to whom?]
In 2003, another album joined Clark's 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. This album was dedicated to her late mother Cecilia Ann Picton-Clark (nee. Murray). At the end of 2010, Clark released the first chapter of an ongoing project Past & Future Tense, the first release on her own label, After Hours Productions.
In January 2011, Clark 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).
In 2016, Clark announced she would take a year sabbatical, then in January 2017 collaborated on the song Donald Trump Praesidend (Quack Quack) with artist Ludwig.London, intended as a parody in light of the election of Donald Trump.[citation needed]
In July 2017, Clark headlined the W Festival in Belgium alongside acts such as Peter Hook and others.[4]
Band
Clark's live band 2008 (from left to right): Jann Michael Engel, Murat Parlak, Anne Clark, Niko Lai, Jeff Aug
"The Hardest Heart" (as Blank & Jones featuring Anne Clark)
2002
22
Non-album single
"Sleeper in Metropolis 3000"
2003
38
The Mix Volume 2 (Blank & Jones album)
"Donald Trumb Is Praesidend"
2017
—
Non-album singles
"Stop Brexit" (with Thomas Rückoldt)
2019
—
"Quack Quack" (with Ludwig London)
2020
—
"Mriya an Ode to Ukraine" (with Justin Ciuche and Jann Michael Engel featuring Jurko Marrow)
2022
—
"—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that territory.
Further reading
Anne Clark: Notes Taken, Traces Left. Fotografien – Texte – Interviews. Edited by Jeff Aug, translated by Martin Müncheberg. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2003. ISBN978-3-89602-463-3. (328 pages, in English and German)
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