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Craig M Clarke has previously made ??two albums "Mercy, Not Sacrifce" and "Life on the Party". Now there's a new album "Here I Go Again".
The new album is a little atypical with its 8 tracks where the songs are a little longer than most pop songs. The songs are built with dominant stroke, and the music will sound like, everything goes by in hypo speed. The music contains various basic instruments like guitar and bass that is good in the surface of the tracks.
Music genres on tracks like "You're Beautiful" and "I Never chairs" can be described as indie pop spiced with rhythms and beats. The title track "Here I Go Again" is the whole 7 minutes long and has heavy beats mixed with a terrific bass that dominates the album.
The album ends with "Ghost of Frankenstein", which contains quotes from the old Frankenstein movie, with actors and music from the film. It's a little funny ending, but fits very well for the album.
4 stars (out of 5) for a different and alternative indie pop album.
- Af Christian A, Anmelder,
Sometimes.
No folk. No Country. No Something.
Dark. Disturbing. Inhibited in tune. In demanding rhythm. Little River. Broken. Broken.
Experimentally. Movable. Mental cinema. Where to?
Puzzle. Samples. Smorgasbord. Panopticon. Pop?
Distorted. Electronically and cold. Daring. Avantgarde.
Romantic coolness. Dry heat. Sense prison in search of sounds.
After Front impelling. Stay on course. Scraps of language.
With stroboscopic flash of darkness. Retired. Industrial clatter.
No pop? Wild. Whither.
No comparison. But rapprochement. Closer = Here I Go Again. NIN.
The songwriting is still Plain Or Musical deconstructionism?
Craig M Clarke - Here I Go Again. Exhausting, but worthwhile.
But: No folk. No Country.
Postmodernism ballads. - The Balladeer
In literature, music and art we encounter them again and again: demons that need to be tamed. Sometimes they appear as white whale, then they torture in the form of a single note, and sometimes they are simply the self-created beast that turns against its creator. Craig M Clarke sprout pad with Here I Go Again even such a monster. He does not want to take them down, he wants to know how to manipulate it, and bring it ultimately to obey him.
The listener then has to be able to listen to the great fortune of the Shrew. He witnesses the battle between the musician and the Beast. Dark, heavy electric sounds pile up and echoes the dark intensity of Nine Inch Nails. Every now and then scattered acoustic instruments can be heard. Over all wafts Clarke's dark voice, sometimes distorted, sometimes free and unfiltered, often surrounded only by a flickering, static noise.
The third album of the Californian living in Reno is hard to digest, incredibly dark, but intensity of a rousing. The individual tracks are very similar, but build it to a total of a massive soundscape Clarke has tinkered at his monster, had to see how it turns against him, but ultimately he has broken his will and his subject -. And on forever averted a phonogram. - Alternative Nation
Craig M Clarke is a founding member of The New Slave and D.W. Holiday. The former remixed the album Yay by Crystal Shipsss into something uniquely crazy, and that’s why (notwithstanding the first two solo albums by Mr Clarke which merged his indie sensibilities with experimental electronica) I wasn’t so surprised to discover that Here I Go Again is another electronic adventure by this gifted musician.
Let’s start with a word of warning though: Here I Go Again is definitely not an easy-listening affair. The eight tracks make to a little over forty minutes, and generally are longer than your average pop song. Their structure is dominated by beats that seem being programmed by someone with a serious case of hyperactivity, and regular instruments like guitar and bass only surface occasionally, and even the synthesizers veer to the more unusual spectrum of sounds. Within all of this, you will notice after repeated listening that the artist subtly hid regular indie pop ideas, buried under a mountain of otherworldly synths and rhythms. This is highlighted already on the opener You’re Beautiful where all of a sudden a distorted sample of a Joe Cocker song (at least that’s what I think) tries to reach your ears. Another highlight is the six and a half minute long title track with its acid bass lines and chiming beats that build a backbone for the distorted vocals. The concluding Ghost Of Frankenstein is the album’s nine minute heart piece, quoting liberally from some ancient Frankenstein movie, actors and soundtrack alike.
It’s definitely unusual to hear a musician with a possibly indie rock background clothe his musical ideas into an experimental electronic outfit, complete with breakbeat eruptions and a lot of distortions, but if you are willing to give Craig M Clarke your undivided attention, you will be rewarded with an astonishingly original album which bridges the indie and electro genres in a hitherto unprecedented way. - Disagreement.net
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
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Bio
Craig M Clarke's music sounds exactly the way he sees everyday life. Deep. Dark. Devout. And daringly to the point.
The audacious singer (and founding member of The New Slave and D.W. Holiday) recently moved from Northern California to Reno, Nevada, where the surroundings gave him a fresh and new sense of freedom - to write songs that are even deeper, darker and devoutly more daring. The cool nightly winds that followed Craig from the corner pub to his recording studio relieved his soul from the heat of the day, as he lay down electronic beats that dig as deep as the duende in his lyrics.
CMC
For his latest album, "Here I Go Again," Craig worked with Sacramento music icon John Callan (SymbioticBiorhythms), who mixed and produced the album. Craig sometimes refers to the album as "The Ghost of Frankenstein," because he related to the theme of a "monster" like Frankenstein being perceived as ferocious. "With this album," explains Craig, "I set out not to destroy the monster in my head, but to understand him, find his weakness and then manipulate him into doing my will."
"Here I Go Again" will be released digitally worldwide on July 31 (via Snowstorm Music) and in Europe on August 6 (via Raw Onion Records).
Craig M Clarke has shared the stage with the likes of The Mountain Goats, The Besnard Lakes, Tobacco, The Hood Internet, Califone, Two Gallants, Film School, Scissors for Lefty, Von Iva and Loquat.
Craig's influences include XTC, Radiohead, The Flaming Lips, Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Robyn Hitchcock, ELO, George Harrison, Donovan, Grandaddy, Blonde Redhead, The Smiths and Morrissey.
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