Sixteen albums into his genre-breaking career, UK producer Clark is learning to trust his voice. “Sometimes you can overly finesse tracks but there is a vulnerability in vocals and in the moment of creating music that makes it,” he tells Apple Music. “Everything else can feel like gilding the lily.” Since his 2001 debut Clarence Park, Clark has traversed everything from melodic electronica to thumping, degraded techno and mechanically layered rhythms. On Sus Dog, Clark looked to Radiohead bandleader Thom Yorke for creative collaboration, ultimately leading him to put his own voice at the forefront of his productions for the first time. The resulting 12 tracks of the album are a moving commitment to unguarded musical expression. From the ear-splitting grind of “Town Crank” to the hopeful love song of “Wedding” and the woozy orchestrations of “Ladder”, Sus Dog is always anchored in the soft falsetto of Clark’s own vocals, driving his compositions eternally forwards. “Writing the album and collaborating with Thom has been such a joyous time,” Clark says. “It has created music that feels so alive.” Read on for his in-depth thoughts on the album, track by track. “Alyosha” “This track is about the utility of self-doubt and accepting that even though we might not always know everything, we can be open while thinking we’re lost. It’s also inspired by the madness of the internet, where you’re never sure what’s simulated or what to believe and it all ends up reflecting your own internal chaos. There’s so much layered on this track—I must have three hours of music in takes—but at its heart it’s drum machines and synths, forming a connection to my older work.” “Town Crank” “In my head this is a Wet Leg song, but it doesn’t sound like them at all—it’s gone through the Clark grinder instead. I recorded live drums with a jazz player, Richard Spaven, forcing him to play metric patterns and then processing the results. It pushes right to the edge of your ears as it’s so thumping and I wrote lots of harmonies to go with it, since the instrumental screamed, ‘Sing over me,’ which is always nice.” “Sus Dog” (feat. Anika)” “The title could mean anything, as I mainly chose it for its sound, although it has references to being suspicious or the musical interval of the major second, which features in many of the album’s tracks. Musically, I was interested in how electronics can meld with the piano for this track and so I recorded an acoustic piano in a church, along with these crazy pads of granular synthesis. Anika’s performance really grounds it, letting the pressure out after the force of ‘Town Crank’.” “Clutch Pearlers” “I bought a massive xylophone when I was working on the album, thinking I’d use it lots, but it only ended up on about six bars of this track! Here the mood shifts again to become weirdly leisurely, playing through a buoyant, fizzing energy and tempo. I made a version that was more hard-edged and electronic, but Thom liked the percussion, so we stuck with that to reflect the lyrical themes of letting go.” “Over Empty Streets” “Sometimes a visual is all I need to plant the seeds for a track and on this one, I had an idea for a bird’s-eye video taken of the hill I live on, swooping down over the city and into the sea. That image gave me the inspiration for this instrumental, capturing the feeling of moving over those empty streets.” “Wedding” “I wrote this song for my wife as it was meant to be a joyous, upbeat track that could be played at our wedding. On the day itself, though, we were distracted by everything else going on and the DJ ended up going for mainly techno tracks instead. Perhaps it can be played at everyone else’s weddings now, although it might not be the most typical choice!” “Forest” “This is another track inspired by an imagined visual. I was thinking that if we could make time-lapse pictures of a single street going back thousands of years, we would end up with everywhere returning to nature and forests, meaning that we’re now living among these ghosts of the past too. When you zoom back in time that far, it can feel scary or humbling, making us feel like a small part of an enormous, continuing entity.” “Dolgoch Tape” “I captured this track really quickly and then ended up making loads of different mixes of it, fleshing out the kick drum or trying to make a club banger version. I put in a lot of work to make it slicker and it started to become really hard to let go of. But it ended up being a great example of the ethos of the record that sometimes your initial feeling is best and, after all that work, it led me right back to the beginning.” “Bully” “This is my favourite track on the album. When I was making it I had this eureka moment where I managed to make the chords keep modulating to create the sense of a constant ascent, while the vocal lines pitch higher and higher too. Thom then played a role in swapping bits of the arrangement around and I’m really happy with how it has turned out—I still always enjoy listening to it.” “Dismissive” “The chorus of ‘Dismissive’ is around five years old—I always liked it but it was a bit strident and I wasn’t sure where it could go musically. When I was playing around with it while I was writing the record, though, I ended up creating a midsection that allows other emotions to come through. The track became quite an odyssey, condensing a lot of complex meaning into an effervescent pop formula—or my idea of that.” “Medicine” (feat. Thom Yorke) “This was a real example of a track that took place in the ‘zone’, where each part was played in one take and hardly changed. I initially couldn’t find the vocal tone for the lyrics, so I took a power nap, woke up and then sang it straight into my iPhone, which is what you hear on the finished version since it was perfect. I then sent it to Thom, who added a fantastic bassline and rounded it out.” “Ladder” “‘Ladder’ was one of the first tracks I sent to Thom around three years ago, which sparked our process of working together. I love how it builds to this orchestral release, which is an amazing part I recorded [with an orchestra] in Budapest, creating strings that sound like they’ve had a woozy my bloody valentine treatment. Right at the end there’s also a reference to the Better Call Saul theme, which I really enjoy listening to. It’s an unusual ending to the album.”