The Age of Clank: Why Genres are Important

I had a particular interest in clank because the word “clank” sounds so very industrial. Before that most cyberpunk of genres died a slow and painful death at the turn of the century, a few records started coming out that were lurching in a new and potentially very exciting direction. The ones that most caught my attention were by Ohgr (Ogre from Skinny Puppy with Ruby’s Mark Walk) and Haloblack (Motor’s Bryan Black, Chemlab’s Jared Louche and 16 Volt’s Eric Powell).

The trouble is that both albums were ignored, and you know what happens to ignored albums: they gather dust in a warehouse somewhere. There must have been some sort of strange cosmic event, because somehow these records cross-pollinated with ‘Call Me Al’ and clank was born.

Finding clank is like thinking your favourite plant is dead, tossing it into the garden shed to store it before you can take it to the tip, and then opening the door to find that it has just somehow … taken … over. Clank is everywhere!

This serendipitous turn of events works especially well, because what Ogre and Bryan were doing didn’t have much to do with industrial’s heritage and didn’t fit in there at all. It was too vibrant, too colourful. Clanky, but not angry enough. I don’t think any of these clanksters are particularly angry about anything: they just like making a fuckload of noise because it’s fun.

(continues overleaf)

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by Princess Stomper

Princess Stomper is a former magazine contributor and music researcher, who now works in a marketing department for an academic organisation. She lives in the English countryside and runs the Reinspired blog.

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