Clark - Playground In A Lake

I haven't played this "yet" because like many of you I'm discouraged and have lost interest. I listened to Kiri Variations twice. Death Peaks twice. The Last Panthers twice. Clark maybe 3 or 4 by now, but don't remember anything from it. I'm surprised I listened to the more recent few more than once each to be honest. I think it just shows I want to like Clark's recent work, but it's doing nothing for me. 

I just listened to the the 30-second clips of Playground on Amazon, as I hadn't yet, and holy shit I want to go to sleep. There seemed to be a few recognizably Clarky elements here and there but by the second half the samples were putting me to sleep. I don't see myself ever getting to this album except maybe if I'm working a 12 hour day and start to feel like it's time to wind it down and need to actually go to sleep soon. Maybe? But I'd probably pick something familiar at that point. Sorry Clark. My queue is far too long already that I'd probably reach for something else of interest.

  On 3/26/2021 at 9:03 AM, thumbass said:

Gonna dive into this later today, saw that pitchfork gave it a 6.1

I give Pitchfork a 0.0. Assiging scores to art is dumb and pretending to do it with a fractional digit of precision is full on mouth breather.

I give pitchfork a 0.01 

the equivalent of a one cent tip. 

  On 4/1/2021 at 12:48 AM, thumbass said:

https://www.juno.co.uk/junodaily/2021/03/31/clark-interview-i-wanted-this-album-to-be-a-gateway-drug-to-classical-music/

Interview

What a schmuck lmao. That headline... Total cringe I can't even

  On 4/1/2021 at 9:50 PM, toaoaoad said:

What a schmuck lmao. That headline... Total cringe I can't even

yeah he's reaching Bono level pretentiousness with some of the wank he spewed out there.

  Quote

It wouldn’t be what it is without the cover – Playground In A Lake just IS the cover, more than the music in some ways.”

"don't even bother listening to the music everyone, just look at the album cover." - Clark

i hate the album cover

  On 4/1/2021 at 10:52 PM, QQQ said:

i hate the album cover

we all do

Sad to say, but "Death Peak" might have been a prophetic title for Clark's electronic music output career...

Yes, I'm sorry to say that as a fan of both Clark and Deustche Grammophon (I've been a pretty casual collector of their output that I find at thrift stores for about 20 years, with my all-time favorite prize being the "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra: Peter and the Wolf (Benjamin Britten)" cassette), this is not working for me. I'm going to try to revisit it with a fresh lens in a few days, hopefully I'll be able to see what he's referring to in that interview, but I didn't really find it very welcoming, to be honest. 

  On 4/1/2021 at 2:31 AM, kuniklo said:

I give Pitchfork a 0.0. Assiging scores to art is dumb and pretending to do it with a fractional digit of precision is full on mouth breather.

By using fractional digit they're making the same argument (of a self-irony sort, it doesn't matter if it's intentional), as in "giving scores is dumb so we'll do it with fractional digits". Having that settled, it makes their scores useful to not have to read their watery reviews. Your score is helpful too, for example.

Then there's an "art" in your attack, when in fact it's called music in this case, assigning a sort of higher and more general level to it. Not any "art" is art, not any music is artful, so to speak. A lot of it already at home in the "dumb" category

This whole thing... It's just so cringe on so many levels. 

A man who is two decades into his career as a professional musician is publicly proclaiming to have recently "taught himself to read and write sheet music". Like we're going to think he's some kind of savant for doing it on his own lol. Why insist on "teaching yourself"? Where is that stubbornness coming from and why is it supposed to impress us? And in proclaiming this, he's only opening himself up to a greater degree of criticism ("let's see exactly what this guy taught himself hmm"). And of course the composition itself is ... really weak. A person in his position should strive for better, or if not, be modest about it: I'm learning, I'm in a process, I'm trying this. Not "I taught myself, and now this shit is going to open people up to the legacy of Western music" lmao. He's been huffing his own farts for months. 

And to say that he hopes this album will encourage people to check out classical music. Really? That music has been around for centuries. Who's going to listen to this first? "You know I always wanted to check out Beethoven but it wasn't until I heard Clark's album that I finally decided to take the plunge". Like people are hearing fucking violins for the first time lol  

If anything, the string players are the ones responsible for bringing this dreck to life, so kudos to them

  On 4/2/2021 at 2:09 AM, toaoaoad said:

And to say that he hopes this album will encourage people to check out classical music. Really? That music has been around for centuries. Who's going to listen to this first? "You know I always wanted to check out Beethoven but it wasn't until I heard Clark's album that I finally decided to take the plunge". Like people are hearing fucking violins for the first time lol  

i lolled

One person's Playground in a Lake is another's Vinyl Record in a Pond

FWIW I liked it just fine although I've mostly listened to it in the background. I listen to loads of classical music but I keep the traditional "classical" music in a different mental bucket than this sort of thing.

  On 4/2/2021 at 2:58 AM, Hugh Mughnus said:

One person's Playground in a Lake is another's Vinyl Record in a Pond

You raise a good point here. The album is supposed to have some kind of subtext about climate change right? And yet, by producing this crap on vinyl and plastic he is only further contributing to the amount of garbage in the ocean, in the end.

Pretty sad to think that Clarence Park just turned 20, and now, twenty years later he's producing lame music like this...

Riffing on Jules' updated cover art...

I'm surprised at the venom on this thread. I don't think it's that bad. It would be lame if he was still trying to do Aphex impressions 20 years on.

lol if Clark's prior music is an Aphex impression then the new album is still an Aphex impression

  On 4/6/2021 at 2:01 AM, kuniklo said:

I'm surprised at the venom on this thread. I don't think it's that bad. It would be lame if he was still trying to do Aphex impressions 20 years on.

Show me a Clark aphex impression pls

  On 4/6/2021 at 2:01 AM, kuniklo said:

I'm surprised at the venom on this thread. I don't think it's that bad. It would be lame if he was still trying to do Aphex impressions 20 years on.

His older works have their own distinct sound and aren't Aphex impressions at all in my opinion.

good thread

I applaud him for trying different stuff even if it's stuff I really don't care for.

  On 4/6/2021 at 9:40 PM, Joyrex said:

I applaud him for trying different stuff even if it's stuff I really don't care for.

Same here. One of my fav things about Clark was that he never really sat still and kept exploring what made him excited creatively. Unfortunately for me, it’s not the same things I enjoy at this point, but that doesn’t make this shit. I’m sure there are people that do enjoy it and he is obviously proud of it. Clark’s gotta Clark. Maybe he feels like this direction has legs...