Seeing Milwaukee’s Barry Paul Clark performing his classically informed electronic music under his adoptahighway alias can be nigh harrowing: Aural sheets of skeletal melodies, atmosphere, harmonies and rhythms rarely danceable in the club-gong sense often mingle over drones. Clark channels from the chasm of despair that seemingly inhabits his soul, railing at the desperation of the darkness about him.
A Fault manifests his dire aesthetic on rather listenable terms, especially for those already possessed of a fondness for synthetic sounds generated from a swath wide enough to encompass Depeche Mode and Mike Oldfield and Edgard Varese. At one with his own melancholy though he may be, by album’s end he offers at least glimmers of hope and light. It’s enough to assume adoptahighway will continue to make music at least this compelling.
