âDonât you lie awake at night wishing that Philip K Dick had written music to accompany his vision of dystopia? All that time he was working in a music store and we only get books⌠Well luckily, Mr. Boris Hauf has supplied us with the next best thing: The great anti-anti-utopia is here.â
– Mark McLaren
CLARK is a unity of three interactive levels: metaphysical, transient and phenomenological. It started in 2005 as a solo CD project commissioned for London label Sijis and was re-released on vinyl in 2016 on Shameless Records. CLARK2 came out on double LP in 2020 also on Shameless and was also featured in the short film called “Island Destinity” (by Hetzer/Kaufmann/Hauf) in 2021. CLARK3, released 2024, is digital only.
Thematically CLARK fantasizes about extraterrestrial pasts, examines our earthly present (âdigital nativesâ, climate-collapse, a world of automation in which we voluntarily give up control to avoid work) and imagines a futuristic interstellar co-existence.
The synth-based beat-oriented science fiction space adventure juxtaposes disassembled post-industrial minimal technoid music with modernist contemporary experimentation. It plays with processual repetition, the imagined and calculated potential of iteration, disintegration, delay and modulation.
CLARK3
Shameless Records 2024
CLARK3 is produced AI free and with artistic support by Max McCormick.
âFounder of the politically and ecologically committed label Shameless, and producer of remarkable albums, Boris Hauf hardens the sound to take us into a world connected to an otherworldly place, haloed by chiaroscuro lights.
The beauty that is one of the artist’s trademarks is adorned with industrial screeches and synths with a love of the underground dancefloor. The layers break the ice to become futuristic rhythmic bursts, cloaked in metallic veils of crystalline blackness.
CLARK3 is a reflection of a universe of dimensions fused into a grand whole, a link between black holes of enveloping asymmetry, tunnels criss-crossed by webs suspended above convex immensities of hypnotic complexity.
Boris Hauf takes us through territories charged with electrical tension, a heap of experimental veins with cerebral convolutions directed towards an elsewhere promising adventure, where we cross paths with the humanity of the senses, via the appearance of a saxophone of cryptic ephemerality. Superbâ
– silence and sound, Roland Torres
“…an uninhibited record, moving virtuosically through different genres of futuristic electronic music. Perfect for summer nights!“
– inactuelles, Dionys
âWE HAUF LIFT OFF ⌠experimenting at will, playing around with disintegration, delay and modulation to scintillating effect. Dazzling stuff.â
– Electronic Sound, Ben Willmott
“Where “CLARK3” succeeds most is in its ability to create a world that feels both familiar an Hauf pulls from a wide range of influencesâthere are hints of “Brian Eno” in the sprawling soundscapes, a touch of “Pan Sonic” in the minimalist brutality of the beats, and even a no “Oneohtrix Point Never” in the way it blurs the lines between synthetic and organic. Yet it feels derivative. This is music thatâs as much about the gaps as it is about the sounds. The spaces left between the blips and bloops are where the real tension lies.
From the Edges Tongues Grow” is not just an album – itâs a statement. A reflection on our precarious present, where humanity edges closer to the abyss, all while the machines keep whirring away. Whether you find it hypnotic or maddening, one thingâs for sure: Boris Hauf created a piece of work that feels eerily in tune with the times, and whether we like it or n might just be dancing to this apocalyptic beat.
Final thought? CLARK3 isn’t going to save the world. But at least it’ll make sure we have a soundtrack as it burns.“
– Chain DLK, Vito Camarretta
////////
CLARK2
Shameless Records 2020
âAdmirable excursion that contemplates half a century of electronics of terrestrial and sidereal environments in eighty minutesâ
– BlowUpMagazine
“If time looked like music, it could be close to Boris Hauf’s new album, CLARK2. The 12 titles are an immersion in a space suspended from the celestial arches of a universe larger than our imagination.”
– Roland Torres
“All this scratchinâ is making me glitch.”
-Kevin Press
“Itâs rare that a single album in one style can justify and maintain an 80-minute duration, especially one with such a minimalist approach as this has at times- but itâs a testament to the balance and control thatâs been put into this that it really is worthy of it. Itâs filmic and grandiose, yet never over the top. Brace yourself for a beautiful musical deep space science fiction adventure on this one.”
– Stuart Bruce
“I don’t know, it makes my eyes hurt.”
– Naima
CLARK
Sijis 2005 & Shameless Records 2016
âThe Syncopated Molecules in Microwave Meals will Finally Understandâ
– Carnage News / Riccardo Goron
âthe re-issue on vinyl makes a lot of sense. It has a great quality and doesnât sound dated at all, unlike some of the computer music that appeared a few years before that, the technoid music of Hauf still sounds remarkable fresh; to me it seems like a wise decision to re-issue this.â
– Vital Weekly 1069 / Frans de Waard re the 2017 Vinyl reissue
âa seriously deep set of tracks that sound like minimal techno thatâs been disassembled, then rebuilt in a slightly different order with half a dozen of the pieces missing⌠âClarkâ is perhaps as far removed from techno as itâs possible to be whilst still being able to justify labelling it as techno, which I will, but this is an extremely deep, insular journey that benefits from focussed headphone listening. Releases like this have been appearing more frequently lately but for a 2005 release this was well ahead of the curve and its release is certainly justified.â
– Chain D.L.K. / Stuart Bruce
âdry and cutting edge electronics, post-industrial techno and minimalâ
– Rockerilla / Roberto Mandolini
âClark makes wonderful use of intelligence and sensations. Itâs a majestic EP of conciseness and relevance, combining the multiple facets of todayâs music to propel them towards a future with exciting modulations.â
– Silence and Sound / Roland Torres
âClark is rising in my estimation with every playâ
– Include Me Out / Robin Tomens
âpost industrial minimal musicâ
– Digital in Berlin / piradio
âa fine bunch of microsounding glitch ambient or whatever you call it, [âŚ] here on âClarkâ he comes up with something that sidesteps that: his own version of techno music. Stripped bare of all unnecessary elements, adding his own sometimes creepy sounds,â
– Vital Weekly / Frans de Waard re the original 2005 CDR release
âFragments of techno juxtaposed with modernist contemporary experimentation make it liable to pique the interest of many an electronic music connoisseur.â
– Furthernosie / Alex Young
âMinimal and elegant electronic music for Boris Hauf, everything is quasi essential during the listening. The sound choice is accurate and the mastering done by Todd Carter in Chicago pushes everything at the right place.â
– Chain DLK / Andrea Ferraris
ISLAND DESTINITY
short film, 2021
Music: BORIS HAUF
Art Direction: CHRISTOF HETZER
Postproduction: CHRISTIAN SCHMIDT
Regie: MICHAEL KAUFMANN
Production Assistent: PEREGRIN RAMML
Support: FILMHAUS WIEN, DR. WOLFI RAMML
Almost all great narratives are about a voluntary or involuntary journey. The departure from familiar places out into an unknown world is also fascinating because it is always a journey of the narrator or the protagonist to themselves. Thus Island Destinity, the title already carries the narrative in itself, with its epic length can definitely be seen as a travel narrative. The piece begins, but one is already on the road for some time. The steady, sustained tempo has proven itself for a long journey, saving energy and allowing for close observation of the landscapes passed through. All senses are activated to the utmost and one attaches importance to every detail, haptic, optical or acoustic. The light, different from what you know, charges every detail with magic, you react to every movement.
But a journey that does not reach a destination becomes a threatening, infinite state, a curse, infinite aimlessnessâŚ.
VIDEOS
CLARK2 Playlist
CLARK Playlist
CLARK live