I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the poet and musician, Anne Clark, for Electronic Sound. The conversation revolved around Anne’s massive 1983 European hit, Sleeper In Metropolis, and was published as part of the magazine’s Landmarks series. It turns out that we both grew up in Croydon. 

In the late `70s Anne worked in Bonaparte Records and was an enthusiastic member of the area’s burgeoning punk scene. The Damned, Billy Idol, Siouxsie and The Banshees, and Kirsty McColl, were all Anne’s contemporaries. Having always written as a form of both expression and escape, Anne first had work accepted by fanzines and underground publications, such as Zigzag and Paul Weller’s Riot Stories. In 1979 Anne then began performing her poetry at open mic nights, called Club Futura, organized by ex-Doctors Of Madness frontman, Richard Strange. This in turn led to Anne curating similar events at Croydon’s Warehouse Theatre. The success of these suburban soirées resulted in the recording of Anne’s second album, Changing Places, with Vini Reilly and David Harrow. Picked up and played in clubs from Berlin to Chicago, Sleeper… was chosen as the single from that set, and effectively landed Anne a major deal with Virgin. 

While Sleeper… is perhaps the obvious smash in Anne’s back catalogue, there are a few more crackers from Ms. Clark in my record collection…

Echoes Remain Forever – 1983

Vini Reilly and David Harrow co-produced Anne’s second album, Changing Places, handling a side each. According to Anne, Vini travelled down from Manchester on a train the night before, and, incredibly, completed his tracks in a day. Despite only having seen Anne’s texts at the start of that session, her words, bitter, and broken by betrayal, perhaps meet their perfect match in Vini’s fragile fretwork. 

Sleeper In Metropolis – 1983

David’s side, of course, contained Sleeper In Metropolis, which compared to, in contrast with, Vini’s stuff takes off like a rush-inducing rocket. Gothic synth chords, eerie arpeggios, and an 808, race through a dark, part George Orwell’s 1984, part Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Dancing in parallel to italo disco, as Anne’s lyrics describe X-Ray Spex’s antiseptic environment extrapolated into a controlled, emotionless near future. Hiding a long-gone-wrong song in images of man in the service, at the mercy of machines, and a claustrophobic air of constant surveillance. Cold sex on synthetic sheets. David’s playing becoming even more impassioned once Anne’s poetry finishes, this piece of proto-techno, proto-trance proved a huge hit in the clubs of Berlin, Chicago, and Dallas’ infamous Starck. San Francisco’s DJ music service, Razormaid, sliced and diced it. 

David Harrow

Our Darkness – 1984

The record company wanted a dance-floor focused follow-up to Sleeper… and Our Darkness was it. The track was a favourite of legendary Chicago DJ Ron Hardy, and I first found it on a bootleg named after the ground-breaking club that he span at, The Music Box. 

Anne’s vocal is cut up and treated, amidst tumbling keyboard sequences, over a big 4 / 4 kick. SPK-like scrap metal snares all the while smashing, crashing. Electro-disco, D-Train-esque, proto-house synths then duel with a Middle Eastern riff. The music and lyrics certainly summoning some kind of dystopia. When this exploded into a huge honking sax solo, I was totally sold and the hunt was on for an original. 

True Love Tales – 1986

Mancunian Balearic guru, Moonboots, championed this moment of melancholic synth pop. Its pretty melodies partnered with lines concerned with angst, anger, self-loathing and lies. The confusion between love and lust. 

“Love is a paradox. He loves me, he loves me not.”

If I Could – 1992

I first heard If I Could on a DJHistory mix made by Jolyon Green. A piece of positive pop, set to a post-Soul II Soul beat, its keys soaring like orchestral strings, while a “real” virtuoso violin moves from sad, storytelling to joyful soloing. Mirroring Anne’s perhaps uncharacteristically optimistic lyric. Lifted by love through sonic summer skies. 

“Rained on by a million stars, each one a gift of your light.”

The tune was co-produced by “Deptford” Dave Pine, who under his alias Ver Vlads also had a track, Crazy Ivan, on Jose Padilla’s first Cafe del Mar compilation. Pine, like David Harrow, was part of the On-U Sound extended family. 

The full story of Anne Clark’s Sleeper In Metropolis can be found, in her own words, in issue 101 Of Electronic Sound. The Martyn Ware 45 that accompanies this issue is a Cafe del Mar worthy work of art.