Devil's Advocate
Dave Clarke
(Skint Records)
Reported by dsko Monday, January 12 2004
"The music will challenge people's preconceptions about me. If you're unaware of my first album or my remixes then you might think that my whole lifestyle revolves around techno. It doesn't."
Though Dave Clarke appears keen to emphasise the musical versatility of his new and second album Devil's Advocate, the record is likely to confirm one simple fact- Dave Clarke remains Britain's greatest techno producer. Ever since he first started terrorising UK clubland in 1992 with his masterpiece techno anthem Red 2, Clarke has been an A list fixture on harder dance floors around the world and seven years after his first album Archive One emerged, he's still clearly at the top of his game. As Clarke points out, his musical journey has included fruitful, influential detours through electro (represented here with a Vitalic style remake of Bauhaus's She's In Parties) and hip hop (check Blue On Blue grindingly hard rap attack) though it's techno where his heart still clearly beats.
Opening track Way Of Life (featuring DJ Rush) is an honest, superb return to his Red series ('I got so fucked off with people ripping it off, I thought I'd rip myself off one more time', he says) setting off an overriding groove of hard, funky, thumping techno. The Wiggle is similarly punchy, its stabbing samples ripping aside pretensions from the start with typical Dave Clarke intensity.
Devil's Advocate's only weak moment occurs on Disgraceland, where a pointless Chicks on Speed rap about punk rock suggests Clarke took his foot off the pedal and let them do their own thing. Otherwise, it's powerful, original and excellent throughout.
|
|
|
