Broken Beat MP3

Talk about a short-lived blog. Perhaps throttleclark.com will find a second life, but with its third posting it’s pretty much fulfilled its charter agenda. Clark, a prominent artist on the Warp label, has posted three tracks at the site over as many weeks, in advance of the release of Body Riddle, his forthcoming Warp album. As an appointment in appointment-downloading, it’s been a success. Furthermore, it’s done more than just whet our appetites. Sure, the first track was from the album itself, but the subsequent entries haven’t been, which has made listeners all the more curious about what’s to come. (Sure the tracks can be streamed, in 30-second chunks, at bleep.com, but that requires patience and a blind ear when it comes to the seams between chunks.) And the final of the three free downloads, “Dusk Raid” (MP3), may be the best so far, less rhythmically succinct than what came before, and rich with plucked instrumentation and broken beats that suggest DJ Krush’s machine-molested shamisen, not to mention muddled horns that bring to mind Robert Wyatt’s solemn art-pop. If these are the leftovers, one can only imagine what the main course will bring. The album will be released the first week of October.