- I first came across "Signals" last year, in the shade of the Warsteiner Selectors stage at Dekmantel. It didn't have a name at the time—the best I could muster was something along the lines of "that Optimo track"—and when I asked a friend in Trouw, who knew JD Twitch and JG Wilkes, she had no clue either. But I found out who it was: Sparky, AKA Dave Clark. He's a Glasgow-based producer who keeps a low profile but is well known among the city's DJs and promoters.
"Signals" is as enjoyable now as it was then—its synth melody, in particular, is so good that I almost wouldn't care if the rest of the song was terrible. Against a sombre chop of pads in the vein of Human League, Clark's synths whistle with Panglossian optimism—explorations of ecstasy and melancholy are common in dance music, but I've rarely heard the tension expressed so purely.
On the B-side, the metal-on-metal percussion of "Tigress" recasts EBM, techno, IDM and industrial music into a tough yet slender DJ tool. Taking notes from fellow Numbers artist Unspecified Enemies, Clark squeezes every acrid drop of funk from the wash of signal noise and flakey rust. Apparently, Clark had to be persuaded to release "Tigress," having held onto it for nearly a decade. Despite his best efforts, the Sparky name might now escape the confines of a few house and techno heads in the west of Scotland.
TracklistA Signals
B Tigress