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Good music can sometimes be as effective as acupuncture. You just have to find the right point and with a tiny needle, it’s possible to trigger an amazing impact.

Tom Clark’s ‘Pressure Points’ is just such an album, knowing exactly the right places to exert pressure and thereby leading listeners by invisible threads into a truly hypnotic and pleasurable experience. Three years after his second album, ‘Service Station’ the Highgrade co-chef and DJ now presents his new studio excursion. This is not a club album, as he says, Pressure Points shows something of Clark’s other side, and of his musical background. It is a confident and complex, but perfectly coordinated album that reflects Clark's artistic development and is orientated to the sound of his DJ sets: groovy, deep and full of class.

Tom Clark is an original native of the city that is sometimes too often referred to as the capital of techno, Berlin. Unimpressed by the hype, Tom's label Highgrade is not only an integral part of Berlin's success story but also stands for the fresh and new sounds emanating of the city.

At the beginning of the 90s he began a mini club night with some friends and after playing various after-hours and parties around the city his reputation brought him residencies at two of the cities most important clubs which have characterized Berlin: Tresor and E-Werk.

Tom founded the now defunct label ‘Gold Plate Music’ with a friend in 1997 to give the new Berlin club sound a platform. Highgrade Records was then founded in 2000, as a label to take minimal house music to another level and discover new sounds. In the ten years of Highgrade's existence it has become his main assignment to pick out the tracks, find new and exciting acts and take care of his artists and planning label nights with befriended labels like Freak 'n' Chic and Wagon Repair at the legendary Berghain club.

And so back to the album…‘Pressure Points’ is twelve tracks ranging from downbeat journeys into minimal house to atmospheric techno and electronica. On ‘Pressure Points’ he finds a more relaxed and permanent effect providing an automatic groove response. You could call Clark’s sound melancholic or anxious but always constantly evolving, most notably on the tracks with Wareika singer Florian Schirmacher. ‘Pressure Points’ is a timeless and universal album that will reveal more and more on every listen.

This summer will also witness the premiere of Highgrade's five-piece "Highgrade Disharmonic Orchestra", a laptop orchestra consisting of fellow label artists such as Todd Bodine and Markus Homm.

www.highgrade-records.de / www.myspace.com/tomclarkhighgrade