Clark's
Turning Dragon is the sort of ear-puncturing blast of four-on-the-floor electronica that negates headphones, seated listening, resting heart rates, and neighborly civility. Flipping that old
Nick Drake adage, even when played quietly, the record just sounds loud. This isn't to say the record isn't scattered with moments of cloud-parting beauty, but even a track like "Mercy Sines," which appropriately begins and ends with merciful chiming sine waves, eventually ruptures into static-drenched discord and melody-free bass slams. Clark keeps his contemporary
Justice's aggressive hyper-compression but shirks that duo's over-arching sense of melody -- there is no "D.A.N.C.E." here, nor anything that might lead to genuine dancing. Which sort of pinpoints the problem: wedged between house and IDM, as
Turning Dragon so craftily is, the record's precise application remains sort of impossible to pinpoint, at once too cerebral to be much fun and too manic to reward close listening.