A Renowned Japanese-New Zealand Composer Charts His Journey to 50: ‘I’ve Always Had This Feeling That I Have to Leave and See What’s Next’
If you look through the liner notes of late 20th/early 21st century musical history, you’ll find Mark de Clive-Lowe everywhere.
Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes it takes completely different forms.
“The blueprint for how I’ve lived my life was my parents,” reflected the Japanese-New Zealand pianist, composer, beatmaker, producer and DJ Mark de Clive-Lowe. “In the 1950s, my dad travelled from New Zealand to Japan, where he met my mum and stayed for 20 years. They had this trans-hemisphere relationship that became our family mode. It’s only become cognisant to me over the last five years, but I was always looking for where I belonged. It’s been a constant search through different places, communities and connections trying to find home basically.”
Over the last three decades, de Clive-Lowe’s search for belonging has taken him from Auckland to London, Los Angeles, and Tokyo while regularly circumnavigating the globe for live performances, DJ sets, and recording sessions with a who’s who of modern music. Although he’s perhaps best known historically for his breakout albums, Six Degrees and Tides Rising, released worldwide in 2000 and 2005, if you look through the liner notes of late 20th/early 21st century musical history, you’ll find him everywhere.
During the 1990s, de Clive-Lowe found a sweet spot in Auckland’s inner-city nightclub scene with a generation of musicians, DJs, and rappers who were figuring it out together live on stage.
As the 2000s dawned, he made his way to the UK for the birth of the fêted West London Broken Beat movement. By the time that decade was over, de Clive-Lowe had become a key player in the musical dialogue between the West Coast and East Coast underground beats, jazz, soul, and hip-hop scenes in the US. Lately, he’s been living in Japan, where he’s been deeply immersed in his most profound journey yet. “I’ve always had this feeling that I have to leave and see what’s next,” he mused.
On August 16th, 2024, de Clive-Lowe turned 50. In late July, he spent two hours on Zoom with me for Rolling Stone AU/NZ, reflecting on a lifetime in music. Several days later, de Clive-Lowe performed at The Broad Contemporary Art Museum in Los Angeles as part of ‘Dilla’s House’, celebrating the late great Detroit hip-hop producer J Dilla’s influence on house music. Despite everything he has accomplished, his best days are still ahead.
You can read the rest of my profile of Mark de Clive-Lowe at 50 over on Rolling Stone AU/NZ here.
BITS & PIECES:
Earlier this week, I also wrote a short review of the Oakland producer/DJ Space Ghost’s new Dream Tool EP for Test Pressing. If you like the dreamy side of house music with bonus boogie-slanted basslines, you’ll like this one. Read more here.
While we’re on the Test Pressing topic, I’ve also written a few words on White Poppy’s forthcoming new album, Ataraxia, due for release in late September via the Not Not Fun label. RIYL: the idea of shoegaze, bossa nova and new-age music living together in splendid harmony. Read here.
In other news, my friends in the Wellington jazz-funk band Revulva are running a preorder campaign through Holiday Records to press their debut album on vinyl. I think they’re currently 64, so pre-orders away from hitting their goal. More details here.
MAZES:
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve made a few mazes of varying sizes out of cardboard and sellotape. You can see a photograph of my favourite one so far above. The idea is you drop a marble in one end and wiggle it around until it makes it put the other end. This one took me a couple of hours to build, but strangely, it was all very relaxing. Something something about hyperfocus, I guess? Now I’m wondering how hard it would be to make a life-sized one. Anyone got any practical advice?
Last week, I helped the Auckland-based RnB artist Demi Hunziker put together some media materials for her new single ‘Hustler’, which is out now on streaming. At the moment, Demi’s making the type of RnB that uses trap/drill production in the instrumentation, with some light touches of DJ Screw’s screw music techniques to seal the deal. She sings about her real-life realities, and she’s fearless. Here’s a snippet of some of the text I wrote for her below. You can follow Demi on IG over here.
A distinct voice in contemporary New Zealand music, Demi Hunziker has set herself apart with her diaristic songwriting style, in which honesty and vulnerability intertwine with sensuality and bravado. Since 2018, the Polynesian artist, activist and sex worker has released a series of nocturnal, neon-lit singles that combine noir RnB, trap, drill and screw music into unfiltered expressions of the complexities and realities of life after midnight in the big city.
WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:
Who remembers Pulsallama? They’re a post-punk percussion ensemble that came together through a series of boisterous and ceremonial performances at Club 57 on NYC’s Lower East Side in the early 1980s. At one point, they were described as “seven women fighting over a cowbell.” While I have it on good authority that this was NEVER TRUE, it does a good job of describing their vibe. Originally recorded in 1983 in a New York studio for a French radio broadcast, this self-titled collection does a great job of summing up a group that was here for a good time, not a long time.
This one cracked me up. Imagine forgetting to message a couple of your friends for a few years, and then suddenly, they pop up on your radar, leading a 50-artist vocal ensemble based in Berlin. Existing in the slipstreams between neo-soul, R&B and gospel, A Song For You brings together a diverse range of cultures and communities in search of a collective HOME. There’s some very beautiful and soulful music on here. I’d recommend listening on your day off, during a quiet patch in the morning, or maybe late at night after the kids have gone to sleep (if that’s your situation). Big love to Noah Slee, Dhanesh Jayaselan and the rest of A Song For You.
Absolutely audacious (and perhaps even jaw-dropping) “what do you even call this?” type music from the cult Japanese outsider composer K. Yoshimatsu. As the fable goes, between 1980 and 1985, Yoshimatsu-san released around forty albums in the process mining (or creating) connective musical threads between ambient music, abstract-punk/post-punk, music concréte and purist pop songwriting. Compiled for the Phantom Limb label, Fossil Cocoon collects some of the best of the material from Yoshimatsu-san’s early 1980s run. Here’s some words my mate Paul East wrote about it for Test Pressing.
To put it in simple terms, Søren Skov Orbit's Adrift is an extraordinary modern jazz album. Founded in 2016 by tenor and soprano saxophonist Søren Skov (Debre Damo Dining Orchestra) and keyboardist Peder Vind, the Danish quintet also includes bassist Casper Nyvang Rask, drummer Rune Lohse and percussionist Ayi Solomon of the legendary 80's Ghanaian roots/highlife band Classique Vibes. Across Adrift, they map out a sonic landscape where the influence of the Sun Ra Arkestra, vintage ethiojazz, and various other figures from the North American avant-garde jazz tradition come together into an intoxicating suite of evocative instrumental pieces. I can’t stop listening to it.
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:
In 2004, the Nobel Prize–winning writer Annie Ernaux undertook the project of writing about a series of photographs she captured during an intense sexual relationship that coincided with her treatment for breast cancer. Reflecting on the images, which show clothing strewn over kitchen tiles and pages of writing knocked off tables in the haphazard rush of love-making, Ernaux takes up questions of desire, art, and mortality. Read her essay On Cancer And Desire: Images from a complicated year over at The New Yorker here.
Inside West Bengal's Booming Sound System Battles: In the region's rural villages, ceremonial competitions have birthed an ear-splitting sub-genre of bass-heavy music. For Resident Advisor, Arielle Domb visited the operators behind the vibrant scene. Read here.
The evolution of rap beef: 34 of the best hip-hop diss tracks: Diss tracks are more than just insults — the art of the diss has helped elevate lyricism, creativity, and the whole hip-hop scene. For Mixmag, Tracy Kawalik explores how diss tracks have evolved and runs through 34 of the best. Read here.
Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in our archives is eligible. Over the weekend, they revisited the lodestar of independent rap, a 1999 Rawkus mixtape that captured the vital, splintering sound of New York’s underground. Paul A. Thompson on Soundbombing II. Read here.
FIN.
I really enjoyed the Rolling Stone article on Mark, thanks for sharing. So satisfying to read that Terrace Martin was at CHURCH… it just makes sense