Biography
Anne Charlotte Clark (born 14 May 1960) is an English poet, spoken word artist, singer and songwriter. Her music is often backed by electronic music, but later she began working with an acoustic band. Her first album, The Sitting Room, was released in 1982, and she has released over a dozen albums since then.
After signing a deal with SPV GmbH, she released her first album, The Sitting Room, in 1982. On which she worked with Dominic Appleton of This Mortal Coil.
Clarke then began collaborating with keyboard player David Harrow, who she had known from the Warehouse Theatre. Their first release together was her second album 1983's Changing Places, followed by EP Joined up Writing in 1984.
Joined up Writing contained the song “Our Darkness”, that was one of Clark's most notable successes. The song was put on a list of the 20 best industrial… and EBM records of all time by Fact magazine in 2014. Fact describe it as “An influential proto-house record”. David Harrow's music on “Our Darkness” is sampled in Benny Benassi's 2003 hit “Love is Gonna Save Us”.
After being moved to another Virgin subsidiary, 10 Records, Clark released the John Foxx-produced album Pressure Points in 1985. The album features the song Heaven which was considered a moderately successful hit across Europe.
Clark was set to start touring in the United States in the late 1980s, however, was subsequently in disagreements with Richard Branson which led her breakthrough in America to be cancelled. Nevertheless, Clark has become a well respected artist across Europe, especially in Germany where she has a cult following.
In 1987, she released Hopeless Causes, recorded and written with Harrow and classically trained pianist Charlie Morgan. This was followed by live album R.S.V.P in 1988.
Clark had moved to Norway in 1987, where she would live for three years. While there she met Tov Ramstad and Ida Baalsrud, collaborating with them and Charlie Morgan she released the album Unstill Life in 1991 on SPV Records. Tracks included “The Moment”, “Unstill Life”, “Abuse” and “Empty Me”. This album was also released in the USA on Radikal Records. During 1992, she released a non-album collaboration on maxi-CD (SPV) with Ida Baalsrud, who both played the violin part and co-wrote If I Could; furthermore, there was also a remix of Our Darkness included on the last track of the CD.
In December 1992 Charlie Morgan died unexpectedly, which caused many planned collaboration projects to be abandoned.
Clark's next release would be The Law is an Anagram of Wealth in 1993. In 1994, Clark began performing with an acoustic band. This culminated in the release of Psychometry (1994), which featured a concert recorded live on stage in Berlin. Her final album for SPV, To Love and Be Loved was released in 1995. A dance remix album titled The Wordprocessing - The Remix Project, was released in 1997.
Her 1998 album, Just After Sunset - The Poetry of R.M. Rilke, a collaboration with Martyn Bates, featured songs adapted from poems by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. This album was re-released four years later in 2002 when Clark regained the rights to the album.
In 2003, another album joined Clark's series of acoustic albums: From The Heart – Live In Bratislava, which she recorded together with Murat Parlak (vocals/piano), Jann Michael Engel (cello), Niko Lai (drums and percussion) and Jeff Aug (guitars) in Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
In 2005, Clark joined up with the Belgian act Implant for the album Self-inflicted, on which she delivered guest vocals. The album was released via Alfa Matrix Records, which in the meantime had become her home label outside of Germany. She also appeared on the Implant EP Too Many Puppies.
2006 saw Clark back again in the recording studio with Implant for the EP Fade Away, on which she delivered guest vocals and performed a duet with Leæther Strip's Claus Larsen. And she also appeared on the album Audioblender by Implant, again released via the Alfa Matrix record label.
In 2008, Clark was in Germany to record her next album The Smallest Act of Kindness, which was released in September 2008. This album was dedicated to her late mother Cecilia Ann Picton-Clark (nee. Murray). At the end of 2010, Clark released the first chapter of an ongoing project Past & Future Tense, the first release on her own label, After Hours Productions.
In January 2011, Clark contributed an arrangement of the Charles Baudelaire poem Enivrez-Vous (Be Drunk) to the audio book and radio play Die künstlichen Paradiese (“The artificial paradises”), (Hörbuch Hamburg/Radio Bremen).
In 2016, Clark announced she would take a year sabbatical, then in January 2017 collaborated on the song Donald Trump Praesidend (Quack Quack) with artist Ludwig.London, intended as a parody in light of the election of Donald Trump.
In July 2017, Clark headlined the W Festival in Belgium alongside acts such as Peter Hook and others.
4Songs
| Song | Year | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Our Darkness | 2002 |
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| Sleeper In Metropolis | 1991 |
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| The Key | 1997 |
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| Wallies | 2012 |
|