Clark - Turning Dragon (CD)

All Music Guide

Clark's Turning Dragon is the sort of earpuncturing blast of fouronthefloor electronica that negates headphones, seated listening, resting heart rates, and neighborly civility. Flipping that old Nick Drake adage, even when played quietly, the record just sounds loud. This isn't to say the record isn't scattered with moments of cloudparting beauty, but even a track like "Mercy Sines," which appropriately begins and ends with merciful chiming sine waves, eventually ruptures into staticdrenched discord and melodyfree bass slams. Clark keeps his contemporary Justice's aggressive hypercompression but shirks that duo's overarching sense of melody there is no "D.A.N.C.E." here, nor anything that might lead to genuine dancing. Which sort of pinpoints the problem: wedged between house and IDM, as Turning Dragon so craftily is, the record's precise application remains sort of impossible to pinpoint, at once too cerebral to be much fun and too manic to reward close listening. - Clayton Purdom, A...ll Music Guide Read more Less