Will Clarke is touching down with his label debut on Factory 93 Records via “Sometimes You Gotta Let It Go,” a moody techno offering ripe with raw emotion.
Donning one of the most iconic beards in dance music is a bragging right the Bristol-bred producer can hold over virtually every other artist from the industry. But his well-kept facial hair still doesn’t turn as many heads as his keen sense for chart-topping grooves.
The seasoned veteran has a healthy number of underground belters attached to his name, many of which have helped push his burgeoning All We Have Is Now imprint onto the elite’s watchlist. He’s long been a frontrunner on Insomniac stages around the world, and it was only right for him to join the ranks on the Factory 93 catalog.
With such a prolific output, it stands to reason his inexhaustible work ethic might occasionally get the best of him. On his latest single, “Sometimes You Gotta Let It Go,” he acknowledges the importance of sometimes forcing oneself to rip the cord out clean.
It’s a dark and brooding affair, one that seemingly employs the warm hum of Moog basslines and painstakingly precise percussive arrangements as a last-ditch effort to silence the inner critic. The hiss of the hi-hats keep time for a meticulous sequence of bleak pads, howling one-shots and crystalline synth surges.
“I remember writing this one late night in my studio in the UK,” says Will Clarke. “I had spent all day in the studio, had dinner, and then ended up back in the studio. It literally represented my mood at the time; the vocal saying ‘sometimes you gotta let it go;’ was just me accepting that literally some things are completely out of my power to control. I wanted to make an emotive, dark record to match the vocal. I fired up my Moog and wrote the bassline and it all came together quickly. This record has been in my sets for a few years now and I’m really happy that Factory 93 is the home for it. I love what the label—and the concept behind the brand—is doing and think it’s super important for the culture of house and techno. We need more labels like this.”
At the end of it all, the fastidious nature of Will Clarke results in a stirring slice of techno that screams perfection.
