The last time we spoke to Clarity, he’d just dropped the deadly Hell’s Gate ep.
At the time, he also gave us some insight into the then-forthcoming long player entitled Infinite, now with us. Time to find out more about this deeply engrossing album and what’s behind its many shifts and layers, which just seem to reveal, confound and amaze on each subsequent listen. Then check the mix he’s kindly given us, at end.
I can’t begin to explain how much I love Infinite, on so many levels. Would you say that this album was influenced by anything in particular… or it was simply the music that came out of a period of your life?
Thanks! When I first started writing tunes for the album I didn’t really have any ideas planned out to work from, I was just writing tune by tune without any real thought process. However, as the album started to develop it sort of began to build its own concept naturally.
At that point I started to think I didn’t really want the album to just be a selection of tunes, but more of a project. I guess a lot of the tracks are inspired heavily by techno as this is what I was mainly listening to at the time and still do listen to.
So yeah, I think it’s really just a reflection of what I felt like or what I was into at the time of writing the tunes in terms of music, film, personal circumstances and stuff like that.
I think it was all fairly subconscious.
I love tunes on Infinite such as ‘Inclination’. I mean THAT, wow.
I think ‘Inclination’ was actually the first tune I wrote for the album a little under three years ago so I’m quite numb to it now. It was when I started to experiment with building tension in my tunes as I thought a lot of my previous stuff was fairly flat in terms of its structure and didn’t really carry much energy.
It was around the same time I really started getting into techno, so a lot of inspiration was coming from that. ‘Inclination’ went through a couple of mixdowns but was one of the first ones to be put on the LP so it kind of cemented the sound and direction of the album.
‘Surge’: what is in your mind as a mental image when you mull over this tune? That’s my fave.
I always find it hard to describe my own music but to me this tune feels like there is some sort of robotic force building up and taking over. It reminds me of Half Life or 1984 for some reason.
When’s the best time we should listen to the album? Dead of night, rush hour, afternoon while walking about… when?
I didn’t really write the album to be listened to at specific times but I did try to make it possible to listen to whenever you want. It works in a club but also if you’re walking around at night or listening at home.
There are some pretty hypnotic tracks like ‘Kaitain’ and ‘False Impression’ but at the same time tracks like ‘Reflex’ and ‘Segment’ have that dancefloor edge. I hope there’s something for everyone in there to listen to when they want, that’s what I intended anyway.
The collabs front here: Ena, Indigo, Skeptical… why did they happen, did you seek them as perhaps the people brought something new, or did they just occur? Can we talk about ‘Cyclone’, as an example?
I love the output from all three of these artists and wanted to bring different ideas to the album that also reflected my tastes. I never like to collab with someone unless we’re on the same vibe and can bounce off each other easily.
I’m not one to collab just because it brings another name to the album, but because we’re in the same boat musically. I’m lucky that I know everyone I have collab’d with fairly well as mates so the tunes always come together really well.
Tunes like ‘Cyclone’ with Indigo actually got made really quickly and I think the best one’s usually do, it’s one of my favourites on the album. In a way it was pretty rushed as me and Liam did it last minute but I’m really happy with the outcome and you can hear both our styles in it distinctly, which is how collabs should be in my opinion.
The album title, Infinite: when I think of the word I think of infinite concepts like space, time in all directions, the afterlife we learned when at school, energy, even flaws in what we know… what are some ‘infinite’ concepts to you?
Whenever I think of the word infinite I always think of space and time and I think this ties in nicely with the album.
I think a lot of the tunes have this ‘infinite feel’ to them, that they could carry on growing forever in terms of structure and time, just like the universe I guess, so that was kind of the concept behind the whole thing.
What’s in the mix you’ve kindly done for us… what sort of things should we look out for?
Basically a lot of tunes that I’m feeling at the moment and that I’m playing out, plus a couple of things from me, so thanks to everyone sending me music! Also a big shout out to everyone who has been supporting the album so far, it means a lot.
Hope you enjoy the mix.
Exclusive Clarity mix
