Album Review: Iradelphic Clark

Album number six for the ever-restless IDM pioneer Chris Clark - who may not have garnered himself a lofty profile such as that of contemporaries Aphex Twin or Autechre, but has nonetheless established a formidable body of work – is teeming with elaborate little melodies you could easily get lost in.

On Iradelphic, there seems to be a few nods to fellow Warp stablemates such as Bibio and his trademark folksy guitars found on Henderson Wrench, and plenty of rustic open spaces on the likes of Com Touch and Skyward Bruise/Descent that hearken to  Boards Of Canada at points. Surprisingly stark in places, Black Stone is a solo acoustic piece in the same vein as the unplugged piano pieces from the aforementioned Twin's Drukqs, achieving a similarly maudlin sense of place. Other tracks though are pure Clark, such as the crazed rambling lead on Tooth Moves and the all-round intricate production that would take a reverse engineer months to unravel at 1,000 frames per second; a refined sets of skills particularly evident on the second part of the sprawling triptych of Pinning. Clark rarely employs vocals, but former Tricky, Massive Attack and Diplo cohort Martina Topley-Bird crops up occasionally with enchanting little riffs and a fluttery jazz scat on Secret that worms into the skull in a way that's much more pleasant than it sounds on paper.

The journey winds down with the blurry-eyed, ultra minimal Broken Kite Footage, ending this sometimes meandering, but often inspired journey. Perhaps not Clark's most cohesive work, but one littered with moments of glimmer and revelation.