Our Darkness

Doubting all the time. Fearing all the time. Our Darkness descends upon Dark Entries with a reissue of Anne Clark’s epochal proto-house masterpiece from 1984. As a young poet, Clark found herself drawn to London’s emerging punk scene. She became acquainted with Psychic TV a ffi liate David Harrow, with whom she would collaborate on 1983’s Changing Places and 1984’s Joined Up Writing. “Our Darkness,” o ff the latter album, was released as a single on Ink Records that same year, and became an underground club hit. It’s a singular piece of music: Clark’s lyrics, delivered with equal parts muscular con fi dence and unease, speak of urban alienation and heartbreak, while Harrow’s production pummels the listener with hydraulic beats and gloom-laced arpeggios. The song’s spirit would prove in fl uential on both the early Chicago house and Detroit techno scenes, where mechanistic funk and existential despair could catalyse dance fl oor mayhem. This reissue o ff ers three versions of “Our Darkness”: the original 12” remix, the Razormaid mix, and a previously unreleased dub version uncovered by David Harrow. Also included is the extended mix of “Sleeper in Metropolis,” another dance fl oor hit of Clark’s, as well as the elegiac “Poem for a Nuclear Romance.” The record includes an insert with liner notes and lyrics. “Our Darkness” channels timeless longing and contemporary dismay, a classic overdue for a little light shed upon it.