Tim Rose, Dave Clarke - Acoustic Recordings (1996-1997) (2022)

Tim Rose:
A nearly forgotten singer/songwriter of the '60s, Tim Rose's early work bore a strong resemblance to another Tim working in Greenwich Village around 1966-1967 -- Tim Hardin. Rose also favored a throaty blues folk-rock style with pop production flourishes, though he looked to outside material more, wasn't quite in Hardin's league as a singer or songwriter, and had a much harsher, even gravelly vocal tone. Before beginning a solo career, Rose had sung with Cass Elliott in the folk trio the Big Three a few years before she joined the Mamas and the Papas. Signed by Columbia in 1966, his 1967 debut album (which actually included a few previously released singles) is considered by far his most significant work. Two of the tracks were particularly noteworthy: his slow arrangement of "Hey Joe" inspired Jimi Hendrix's version and "Morning Dew," Rose's best original composition, became something of a standard, covered by the Jeff Beck Group, the Grateful Dead, Clannad, and others. Years later, though, it was debated as to whether Rose wrote the song, or whether folksinger Bonnie Dobson penned the original version. Some non-LP singles he recorded around this time have unfortunately never been reissued, and although he made several other albums up through the mid-'70s, none matched the acclaim of the first one. An influence on Nick Cave and others, Rose died on September 24, 2002. A posthumous album called Snowed In, which contains material Rose was working on in the last year of his life, was released in 2003 by Cherry Red Records. ~ Richie Unterberger

Dave Clarke:
One of the most respected (and idiosyncratic) techno DJs and producers in the '90s, Dave Clarke began his music career as a hip-hop DJ in the mid-'80s, shifting to acid house and later rave near the end of the decade. He began recording for Stress (as Pig City) in the early '90s and appeared on R&S, XL, and his own Magnetic North Records. By the mid-'90s, he had gradually shifted away from rave to a brand of straight-ahead techno with the ferocity of hardcore yet the sublime feelings of classic Detroit techno. A series of three singles named "Red" gained fame during 1995-1996 (the last went Top 40 in the U.K.), as did his ferocious DJ sets. Demagnetized, a compilation of his earlier material on Magnetic North (with additional tracks from Cristian Vogel, DJ Hell, and others), was released in 1995. Clarke's phenomenal album debut, Archive One, appeared in a year later on Deconstruction. Clarke also mixed two volumes of the crucial electro compilation series Electro Boogie for Studio !K7. A handful of other mixes followed, including two volumes of World Service, which were issued before and after the 2003 studio album Devil's Advocate. The two-disc compilation Remixes and Rarities: 1992-2005 came out in early 2007. In the years that followed Clarke kept a relatively low production profile, although he spent ample time maintaining his radio DJ presence. When he did enter his Amsterdam-based studio, he continued to craft some exceptional remixes. Many of them were collated in 2016 for the Charcoal Eyes remix compilation. Later the same year, Clarke was involved in a road accident in Serbia; he did not receive any major injuries but the crash informed the sound of his 2017 album, Desecration of Desire, which featured guests such as Mark Lanegan and Anika lending their vocals to a pensive, post-punk-inspired record.