Clark was born Christopher Stephen Clark in 1979 in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, where he grew up and attended St Albans School.[4] He started making music as a teenager, and also began experimenting with building his own primitive equipment, including a "home-built stylus made out of a hook and some masking tape".[5] He went on to attend Bristol University.[6] As a student, his music teacher told him that if Clark were to buy a drum machine, he would give up all hope in Clark's musical ability.[7] Whilst still a student, Clark first impressed staff at Warp Records playing under the moniker Chris From St Albans at their Nesh party in December 2000.[8] He was subsequently signed to Warp, and as Chris Clark released his debut album Clarence Park in April 2001. Clark then moved to Brighton,[9] followed by Birmingham where he stayed for some time,[10] during which he collaborated with Broadcast on a reinterpretation of his track "Herr Barr" and other unreleased material.[11] He currently splits his time between Brighton and Melbourne. With the 2006 release of Throttle Furniture, he shortened his artist name to Clark.[12] His music has been played on BBC Radio 6 Music by Shaun Keaveny, Lauren Laverne and Tom Ravenscroft.[13] He also recorded a mix for Ravenscroft,[14] described by the presenter as "just about the best ever done for the show".[citation needed]
More recently, Clark has focused on score work for film and TV, pursuing it alongside studio albums "because you get options to record with more musicians when you score and I found that was a nice thing to have running alongside the solo work".[15]
Clark has a longstanding creative collaboration with award-winning dance choreographer Melanie Lane, beginning in 2010 with the dance performance/installation Tilted Fawn which later won the 'Dance & Physical Theatre Award' at the Fringe World Awards 2012.[16]
