Ampere proudly announces the return of Dave Clarke for an extended set at our beloved Ampere Antwerp. After last years sold out edition, we are pleased to kick off the new year with the one and only baron of Techno.
DAVE CLARKE | extended set |
support acts to be announced within the coming week.
tickets online from Monday, January 8th at 13:00 CET.
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Dave Clarke is a DJ with an anarchist streak a mile wide and punk in his soul. Nothing says this as potently as his new album, ‘The Desecration of Desire’. Electronic to the hilt yet full of rich, dark songwriting, it’s been almost two years in the making and comes 14 years after his last full-length outing.
“The desire to write songs has been bubbling in me for ages,” Clarke explains, “My first album was a collection of tracks, the ‘Red’ series of EPs, plus other stuff. With my second, even access to my studio was an issue. Those two felt like collections. This one’s more like a book, a chronology. I’m so happy with my studio. I’ve stayed away from club music. Finally, it’s just me, my imagination and a touch of fearlessness about opening up.”
A serious car crash in Serbia in July 2016 also affected Clarke. It fed into the album’s pensive mood, and gave him a desire to DJ less but to inject more of himself into the sets he takes on. “I still love DJing with a passion,” he enthuses, “but the album also ignited a flame within me about making music, about being totally true to myself. It’s been a long time coming…”
Clarke’s debut release was in 1990 on XL, around the time the label was launching The Prodigy. He used the name Hardcore, a guise he then took to the legendary Belgian techno-rave imprint R&S where he released various EPs (some as Directional Force). By 1992 Clarke’s own label, Magnetic North, was on the rise and he unveiled the classic ‘Alkaline 3dh’ (as Fly By Wire), among others. A next level career boost was round the corner when his ‘Red’ trilogy were unleashed on Bush Records in 1994. These catapulted Clarke into a different league and he suddenly found himself remixing the likes of Kevin Saunderson’s ‘Inner City’, The Chemical Brothers, New Order, Depeche Mode, Moby, Leftfield and Underworld. Undisputed landmarks in techno, DJ Mag rightly incorporated ‘Red’ in its All Time Techno Top 100 list.
Clarke’s debut album ‘Archive One’ followed, flecked with hints of breakbeat and electronica, a novelty in the puritanical techno scene of the time. Clarke’s mix CDs include the techno/electro double ‘World Service’ outings, one of which sold nearly 100,000 and made it into Resident Advisor’s top ten mix compilations of the 21 st century. He signed to Skint Records – home of Fatboy Slim – resulting in 2004’s ‘Devil’s Advocate’ album, jammed with dark techno energy but laced with hip hop beats. When his production pace ebbed, Music Man Records gathered together ‘Remixes & Rarities’ in 2007, making ‘Album Of The Month’ in Mixmag and receiving critical plaudits all over.
As a DJ, Clarke plays out three weekends a month across Europe and the world, living up to his nickname, the Baron of Techno, a moniker given him by the late, great BBC Radio DJ John Peel. There’s the same attention to detail each time, his sets swooping whip-smart along the cutting blade of techno and electro, backed up by a seasoned bag of DJ tricks in which his early hip hop roots clearly show. Techno’s first and original “Man in Black”, Clarke blends into the background upon arrival and lets his music do the talking. That’s where he comes alive, where skills honed for years blow venues apart.