Mark De Clive-Lowe : past present (tone poems across time)
I was impressed to see an interview in Rolling Stone last summer with none other than the genre-breaking, one-of-a-kind Japanese New Zealander, certified modern jazz musician, Mark de Clive-Lowe. (No shade against the legacy platform; they’re covering high-caliber culture-specific dance music now, too? Who knew?) During the dialogue, this producer, in-demand performer, pianist, beatmaker, live remixer, DJ, and composer based out of Los Angeles, mentioned a realization that Japan was his spiritual home and New Zealand was his biological home, and he needed to examine that.
He secured a fellowship years later that allowed him to spend five months in Japan, retracing his father’s journey over the two decades he spent living there. “That was one of the most profound experiences I’ve had in my life,” he reflected. “The level of catharsis and posthumous healing I experienced was incredible. I was about to return to the States and take a role as a professor at a music college, but I realised I wanted to stay in Japan and keep pursuing this feeling.”
His most recent release, past present (tone poems across time), is a culmination of sound sources taken during those months, and his documentation of the experience, the wave of emotion that overtook him during his travels, and his overall sense of awakening. For the style of record, it was from a suggestion by the ever-prolific musician, producer, and visionary Carlos Niño. I’ve seen, no, experienced his wizardry live; one time communicating with shakers, bells, and whisks, directing a gentle wind in a performance, and then getting on the mic, and guiding the audience, “Stretch with us Ahhhhh.”
He’s tapped into, well… things you can’t see, but you feel and sense.. Anyway, Carlos Niño, who is very familiar with Mark’s multi-layered motifs in the studio and in live contexts over many years, explained in the press notes, “I kept hearing him make an album like this. I kept telling him that he needed to, and that it would be his best album yet. Subtle, poetic, solo, texturally rhythmic, expressive, full of rippling layers, and arrangements representing such profound thoughts, feelings, relationships, and memories.” Just to break all that down, basically, he told him to be Jamie Foxx in Collateral. Tone down all the stuff we know you can do, and let the rest of the stuff, that maybe gets lost in the heavy rhythm jacket, rise in its place.
De Clive-Lowe’s latest release exudes a vibrant, pulsating human energy. By blending programming with live performances on devices like the ARP 2600, Fender Rhodes, and around 20 other synthesizers and instruments from The Breath in Los Angeles, he creates much more than an enchanting listening experience, it’s a portal of resolution. The song titles reference various actions and states of being, resulting in music that is sequenced for the action of letting go.
There are no broken-beat narratives here—just melodies, ambient stolen moments that may be inspired by jazz but tabulate into something else. “present, past” could be a moment in time talking backward from the Les Mcann Layers album, it’s just that proggy warm. “reflection” hits on low-end theories first put in the air by ’70s Stevie Wonder jazz and out-snippets from Alice Coltrane wild-swinging highlights, and the closer “past present” melds up forward-facing moments from Vangelis and Tangerine Dream.
What’s always present here is De Clive-Lowe’s musical snapshot of his father as a younger man, just starting on his life journey. That picture, coupled with these synths has allowed this artist, mostly known for dance music, to make his most personal and deep-feeling release to date—bound to brings tears of joy to anyone whose had lingering issues and emotions with a deceased father. past present (tone poems across time) is a peaceful resolution to an unwinnable scenario.
Label: BBE
Year: 2025
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