Anne Charlotte Clark (born 14 May 1960) is an English poet, spoken word artist, singer and songwriter. Her music is often backed by electronic music, but later she began working with an acoustic band. Her first album, The Sitting Room, was released in 1982, and she has released over a dozen albums since then.
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Early life
Clark was born the daughter of a Roman Catholic Irish mother, Cecilia, and a mixed Scottish and Welsh Protestant father, Herbert. She has one brother, John and mentions in her spoken biography Notes Taken Traces Left that her mother also had another son who died shortly after being born. Clark recollects her childhood in her spoken biography as being "troubled but loving at the same time". At the age of 16, she left school. She took various jobs, one of which was as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital.
She then worked at a local record store and label, Bonaparte Records in Bromley. Joining the early punk scene, she started booking events at Warehouse Theatre, putting on music, poetry, and comedy. Clark managed to fill the theatre with artists like Paul Weller, Linton Kwesi Johnson, French & Saunders, The Durutti Column, Ben Watt (who later became a member of Everything But The Girl), and many others.
She experimented with music and lyrics herself and first appeared on stage in Richard Strange's Cabaret Futura with Depeche Mode. By the early 80's she was performing poetry backed by a band called A Cruel Memory.
Working with Paul Weller, she helped to set up his Riot Stories publishing imprint, and was part of putting together Hard Lines, an anthology of new authors for Faber & Faber.
Career
After signing a deal with SPV GmbH, she released her first album, The Sitting Room, in 1982. On which she worked with Dominic Appleton of This Mortal Coil.
Clarke then began collaborating with keyboard player David Harrow, who she had known from the Warehouse Theatre. Their first release together was her second album 1983's Changing Places, followed by EP Joined up Writing in 1984.
Joined up Writing contained the song "Our Darkness", that was one of Clark's most notable successes. The song was put on a list of the 20 best industrial and EBM records of all time by Fact magazine in 2014. Fact describe it as "An influential proto-house record". David Harrow's music on "Our Darkness" is sampled in Benny Benassi's 2003 hit "Love is Gonna Save Us".
After being moved to another Virgin subsidiary, 10 Records, Clark released the John Foxx-produced album Pressure Points in 1985. The album features the song Heaven which was considered a moderately successful hit across Europe.
Clark was set to start touring in the United States in the late 1980s, however, was subsequently in disagreements with Richard Branson which led her breakthrough in America to be cancelled. Nevertheless, Clark has become a well respected artist across Europe, especially in Germany where she has a cult following.
In 1987, she released Hopeless Causes, recorded and written with Harrow and classically trained pianist Charlie Morgan. This was followed by live album R.S.V.P in 1988.
Clark had moved to Norway in 1987, where she would live for three years. While there she met Tov Ramstad and Ida Baalsrud, collaborating with them and Charlie Morgan she released the album Unstill Life in 1991 on SPV Records. Tracks included "The Moment", "Unstill Life", "Abuse" and "Empty Me". This album was also released in the USA on Radikal Records. During 1992, she released a non-album collaboration on maxi-CD (SPV) with Ida Baalsrud, who both played the violin part and co-wrote If I Could; furthermore, there was also a remix of Our Darkness included on the last track of the CD.
Band
Current live band members:
Anne Clark, Vocals
Jeff Aug, Guitarist
Tobias Haas, Drums & Percussion
Murat Parlak, Piano
Jann Michael Engel, Cello
Steve Schroyder, Keyboards & Programming