Mark - So You Betrayed The Creative Arts

A Colourful Storm

£25.08

Format: LP
Catalogue No.: ACOLOUR043
Barcode: 4251804142007
Release Date: 02 Jun 2023
Genre: Ambient/Drone

LP+ Postcard Insert

A. So You Betrayed The Creative Arts
B. For Your Own Personal Ends

Over the past five years, Mark has forged a unique identity in underground drum’n’bass, alloying traditional junglist motifs and luminous electroacoustic ambience to devastating effect. Developing his sound through a series of singles and EPs on A Colourful Storm and Berghain’s Unterton imprint, A Colourful Storm presents the culmination of his work and debut album: a two-part study in rhythm, timbre and texture of monolithic scale.

Mark’s ambitions had been clear from the outset. Integrier Dich Du Yuppie (2017) and The Least Likely Event Will Occur In The Long Run (2018) are not titles of fleetingness but statements of grave philosophical heft. The relationship between—and division of—people, place and power animated Mark’s production and has remained a pertinent theme throughout his work.

Within these groundbreaking sides lies a synergy between splintering rhythmic elements and extraordinary atmospheric passages inspired by post-Second Viennese School disciples like Luigi Dallapiccola and composers such as Radulescu, Zemlinsky and Monteverdi.

Mark's ambition to bridge the sonic qualities of post-tonal composition and soundsystem frequencies is fulfilldd through two meticulously arranged longform pieces. Any suggestion of connection to dance music history has been thrown out for rhythmic arrangements that skirt the contradiction between strict logical coherence and human perceptio: what on the surface seems hostile reveals a catacomb of connections between elements that stake their claim, disappear, merge and finally reappear.

The album is deeply personal. Following a Stanislavski-led path through fragments of his pre-maturity music history, Mark connects memories of free jazz drumming and modern percussion ensemble performance with the joy of choral singing, ad hoc kitchen-sink group improvisation and those moments where life seems to swing on a hinge of musical feeling.