On the 16th of April (2016) Dave Clarke released “Charcoal Eyes: A selection of remixes from Amsterdam”. It was released on vinyl, CD and digitally on News. It includes comprehensive sleeve notes explaining backstories to each track; as well as a special two verse poem penned by Clarke himself. Hot Press caught up with him to discuss

We love the new album. When did you decide to do this project, was there a defining moment or was it always something you wanted to do?
There wasn’t one moment, but at some point it became a “body of work” and then it all made sense to put it all out together. Probably Soft Moon was the moment when it made sense to do all this.

How did you decide what artists/tracks to work with?
Either way either they come to me or my manager approaches them. I have to feel for the tracks of course, I mostly like to work with songs as opposed to techno tracks for remixing (as a solo artist) as there is more complexity and a lot of human emotion which is refreshing and challenging to work with.

How did you find working on a remix album versus your original works?
Original is from scratch so more time consuming, remixing always starts from somewhere but you don’t always know where it will end up, plus you hope the artist(s) will approve your work, with I am Kloot I did a version where I extended it and add some drums, extra layers (which is included on the CD) but they wanted me to be hardcore on it and that is how the Electro version came out.

What are your next studio projects?
A new artist album is underway as I type

What advice would you give to aspiring producers?
Do it from the heart and be yourself.

Originally published in Hot Press Magazine, March 2016