Mark - So You Betrayed The Creative Arts For Your Own Personal Ends

Debut long player for long term A Colourful Storm affiliate and Berlin's most agitated, Mark, who you'll also know as Mark Klon and/or Klon Dump. Generally credited as a drum and bass producer, there's nonetheless a high degree of variation/variegation across the man's scattered output, united in the most part by an actively displayed disdain for the more, shall we say, cynical aspects of The Culture. As if that title wasn't a big enough clue... I'm all for sure polemics (and all war is class war aint it), but don't let it shadow the undeniable sonic innovation, for this is truly some smart-headed, left-turn music making. Simply, you can get away with such front when you're this good. We get 30 minutes over two sides of rhythmically inventive, texturally dense counter intuitive production that reimagines jungle in the context of minimalist composition, an unusual paradox that sounds genuinely fresh without getting off on its own intelligence (that they can cite Schoenberg's Second Viennese School as a direct influence without irritating me is clear testament to that fact). Iconoclastic, anti anti-intellectualist, actually enjoyable to listen to - Mark might have hit the previously mythical sweet spot. Favourite thing on ACS in a good while and unequivocally a career high for the producer.