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| | Arts Calendar / August 1 / Festival |
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 Red Park Festival 2015 festures Slowdive, Will Butler and Clark (Chris Clark). Named after a word in one of Nick Chaplin's dreams - not from a Siouxsie and the Banshees single -- Slowdive formed in Reading, England, in late 1989. The group originally consisted of Neil Halstead (guitar/vocals), Rachel Goswell (guitar/vocals), Christian Savill (guitar), Adrian Sell (drums), and Chaplin (bass). Formed when they were mostly in their teens, Slowdive was initially lumped in with the remainder of the early-'90s British shoegaze scene; Slowdive's later releases extended upon the likes of the Cocteau Twins and the more atmospheric sides of post-punk, and they closed out their career with an excellent and misunderstood ambient LP. Signing with Creation, Slowdive's early singles received glowing press and chart placement. Their debut single, Slowdive, thinly veiled an indebtedness to the Byrds and My Bloody Valentine, with no traceable punk influence. (In fact, they were probably amongst the first batch of young rock bands to ignore the movement). Just after Slowdive's recording, Sell left for university. Neil Carter subbed for less than a year, lending his skills to the follow-up single, Morningrise; former Charlottes member Simon Scott hopped on board prior to the band's third single, Holding Our Breath. The sleepy escapist psychedelia of both Morningrise and Holding Our Breath made significant impressions on the British indie chart. The press dubbed them part of "The Scene That Celebrates Itself" - a small, loose, conglomerate of like-minded bands who could be seen at each other's shows, frequently hanging out together within the same circle. This "scene" included Lush, Moose, Swervedriver, Curve, and Blur. Not associating with themselves as a move of self-importance, grandstanding, or high society, it was merely a means for those involved to get into shows for free. Most of those involved were university dropouts on the dole. A dastardly move by the press, the tag just made it easier for them to lasso a group of bands into the to-be-expected derision. With the Brit-pop trend close behind, they could cast aside their champs of yesterday with one fell swoop. Slowdive's debut LP, Just for a Day, was released in September of 1991. Though it placed in the Top Ten of the indie chart, the press backlash was beginning to surface - shoegaze was beginning to fall out of favor, and when bands put out a full-length, it's typically an ideal time for the British press to decide you're no good. An Academy Award-nominated singer/songwriter and composer best known as the acrobatic, multi-instrumental, core member of the spirited, Grammy Award-winning indie rock collective Arcade Fire, Will Butler was born in Northern California and spent his formative years in Southern Texas. The son of a geologist (father) and a classically trained musician (mother), Butler graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 2001 and joined Arcade Fire, which was the brainchild of his older brother Win and Win's wife Régine Chassagne, in 2003. He made his first recorded appearance on the group's acclaimed 2004 Merge Records debut Funeral, and contributed heavily to all of the band's subsequent releases (Neon Bible, The Suburbs, Reflektor). In 2013, Butler joined up with fellow musical polymath Owen Pallett to compose the soundtrack to the Spike Jonze-directed futuristic romantic comedy Her, for which he received his Oscar nomination, and in 2015 he issued his eclectic debut solo album, the Merge-issued Policy. Chris Clark is an English electronic musician, performing under the mononym Clark. He is currently signed to Warp Records. History: Clark was born Christopher Stephen Clark in 1979 in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, where he grew up and attended St Albans School. He started making music as a teenager, and also began experimenting with building his own primitive equipment, including a "home-built stylus made out of a hook and some masking tape". He went on to attend Bristol University. As a student, his music teacher told him that if Chris were to buy a drum machine, he would give up all hope in Chris' musical ability. Whilst still a student, Chris first impressed staff at Warp Records playing under the moniker Chris From St Albans at their Nesh party in December 2000. He was subsequently signed to Warp, and as Chris Clark released his debut album Clarence Park in April 2001. Chris then moved to Brighton' followed by Birmingham where he stayed for some time, and during this time collaborated with Broadcast on a reinterpretation of his track Herr Barr and other unreleased material. He currently resides in Berlin. With the 2006 release of Throttle Furniture, he shortened his artist name to Clark. His music has been played on BBC Radio 6 by Shaun Keaveny and BBC Radio 6 Music by Lauren Laverne and Tom Ravenscroft. He also recorded a mix for Ravenscroft, described by the presenter as "just about the best ever done for the show." Clark's music is generally considered to fall under the genre of electronic music, although Clark himself finds this label ambiguous and describes Turning Dragon as a "techno album". He often experiments with forms of degradation, distortion and decay associated with different mediums, employing techniques such as re-recording samples and field-recordings in different environments. Describing such processing, he has said: "What I tend to do is just jam stuff through as many boxes as I can, until everything sort of bleeds into itself and all its surrounding parts." Clark plays the drums, and some of his material, especially Body Riddle features recordings of his drumming, often heavily re-sampled. On describing his live set Clark states: "If you see me play, my hands are all over the place - literally I'm doing every single thing. Everything that happens on stage is being played and created live. It's very interactive. So in that respect, it is very much based on live instrumentation." More info
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