Since 2001, Chris Clark has sculpted sound into a myriad of diverse forms. His two decades at Warp Records have witnessed experiments in electronica, techno, and rave, with equally colourful adventures in ambient, classical compositions, and cathartic songs for Deutsche Grammophon and his own Throttle Records.
With a history of licensing music for projects as diverse as Neill Blomkamp’s $100m feature film Elysium boasting a star studded cast led by Matt Damon, and hit video game Sleeping Dogs, the move to composing for directors Johan Renck and Pablo Larraín is a natural one. Clark’s atmospherically rich repertoire of music lends itself to cinematic storytelling. His albums are worlds in and of themselves, with entirely new ones emerging from the expansive scores he makes in close collaboration with directors, performers, and orchestras.
Clark’s debut score was for Warp Films-produced 2015 miniseries The Last Panthers, created by Jack Thorne, directed by Johan Renck, and featuring Samantha Morton alongside John Hurt’s final television role. The multi-language series finds a diamond heist triggering a trek through Europe’s criminal underbelly, realised by Clark as a cohesive listening experience with tense sequences of emotionally potent piano, ambience set ablaze by synth fountain eruptions, and classical themes imbued with exhilarating electronics.
Thorne would again cross paths in 2018 with Clark for his Channel 4 miniseries Kiri, directed by Euros Lyn and featuring Sarah Lancashire. A social worker’s case on the nine year old Kiri becomes a murder mystery tangled in fraught familial relations, brought to life in Clark’s Kiri Variations album through folk-driven sound collages and skeletal arrangements of treated instruments, which he describes as “a set of Roald Dahl short stories; bitter-sweet tales with hooks and teeth and unexpected macabre twists”.
As Clark weaves albums from the threads of his scoring work, he highlights a symbiotic relationship between his solo career and his collaborators. His first feature film soundtrack in 2019, director Adam Egypt Mortimer and writer Brian DeLeeuw’s Daniel Isn’t Real, merged heaving, distorted techno with orchestral arrangements full of grandiose suspense and tension, characterised by ultra expressive angular strings. Forging connections with Deutsche Grammophon for the film’s soundtrack, Clark would also release his next album Playground In A Lake with the label. This project saw a deepening of his relationship with Thom Yorke, whose remix of the film’s “Isolation Theme” would lead to a mentorship with Chris through the production of his first vocal centred record, 2023’s Sus Dog.
The 2021 Apple TV+ miniseries Lisey’s Story raised the stakes. Adapted by Stephen King from his own 2006 novel, executive produced by J. J. Abrams, directed by Pablo Larraín, and featuring Julianne Moore and Clive Owen, its premium budget allowed Clark access to the celebrated Abbey Road and Air studios, shaping the epic, driving motifs of a 30 piece string ensemble, and the imposing growls and reverent wails of choirs diving into each character’s internal landscape. Pianos traipse and cascade across a plethora of moods, while tracks like “A Ritual Scouring” highlight Clark’s unique compositional voice bending strings to invoke the series’ surreal world.
The trust between composer and director is integral to these soundtracks, especially to Naqqash Khalid’s directorial debut In Camera. “This soundtrack and body of work Clark has invented feels like another character in the film,” Khalid says, “like an extension of the film’s atmosphere and interiority.” Glittering percussive synth surges, reversed vocals, and strings quivering in clawing anxiety mesh with the film’s dreamlike structures, forming a mixture of unsettling beauty.
The physicality of Clark’s ever changing sound excels in the physical medium of dance. One of Clark’s closest and most prolific collaborators is Australian/Javanese choreographer and performer Melanie Lane, whose works he has regularly scored and designed sound for since 2010’s Tilted Fawn was performed at the Sydney Opera House. The visceral movements of performers vibrate in time with stuttering synths, sound installations, and live scores of treated cello and electronics. 2017’s WOOF brings Clark’s irradiated experiments in rave from the club to centre stage with performers from Sydney Dance Company exploring collective power, sensuality, and ecstasy, while 2023’s Mountain and 2024’s dance opera Arkadia draw on his growing orchestral experience to evoke mythical themes through a confluence of acoustic and electronic, art and movement. Together they have received numerous awards, toured worldwide for Clark’s 2014 Clark and 2017 Death Peak albums, and created a rich oeuvre where Clark scores the interactions with space and human communion in Lane’s performances, and Lane unfolds his sonic sculptures in real time.