Monopoly Star Child Searchers
Originally trained as a photographer, Spencer Clark started making music almost twenty years ago. Right from the beginning, he has been part of many significant moments in 21st century “fringe” music. As The Skaters, he and James Ferraro were part of the US noise scene in the early/mid-noughties. The Skaters belonged to the Californian branch of that scene: they recorded almost twenty albums in just one year, although they released them in the span of four years (2004-2008) while touring – to then remain silent ever since. Their final release, Physicalities Of The Sensibilities Of Ingrediential Stairways, is probably the most complete evidence of that period. The parting of the ways led Spencer to experiment with music under a list of monickers such as Black Joker, Vodka Soap, and Monopoly Child, that in 2009 David Keenan accounted within hypnagogic pop, i.e., “pop music refracted through the memory of a memory.” In his article for The Wire, Keenan had referred to a sort of continuity with exotica, in its more psychedelic ramifications, as a defining feature of hypnagogic pop; this continuity has become somewhat a trademark in Spencer Clark’s later production. In fact, he become one of the stars of the current lush neo-psychedelia/exotica constellation, together with labels such as Discrepant, his own Pacific City Sound Visions, Aguirre, Edições Cn, Artetetra, and many more. Quite consistently, Spencer Clark has also been acknowledged as one of the starters of the New Age revival that took place all along the past decade. Yet, these elements are just part of what can be retrieved throughout his immense discography: his wide stylistic variety has its match with an across-the-board interest in different cultural areas. He frequently blows up the walls separating so-called high and low culture – exploring the ways they can be connected together: just to name a recent examples, in his two albums with Italian sound artist Francesco Cavaliere under the Etrusca 3D monicker, they blended together the Etruscan civilisation and ancient 3D movies. Under this respect, one of his most significant project is Fourth World Magazine, whose third installment, Neoplatonic Aquatic Symposiums, has just been released. He will be performing as Monopoly Child Star Searchers in support of his new album Barbados Wild Horses, a record which he recorded with Sun Araw.