First Week of Winter by Watch Clark

Seattle’s Watch Clark Releases Sophomore Album ‘First Week of Winter’

bio / about

Founded in 2012 by musician Paul Furio, Watch Clark is an electronic band with elements of mid-90’s industrial and synthpop that emerged from the heyday of the Seattle indie goth/industrial scene of the early 2000’s. Formerly of Static Engine and Invisible Records artist SMP, Furio honed his music writing craft for two decades before releasing his first album ‘Perfect Imitation’ under the moniker Watch Clark.

Late nights in the studio in front of digital keyboards, analog synthesizers, retro beatboxes, and twiddling software settings years later led to the second release ‘First Week of Winter’.

Featuring 10 tracks, here they deliver an album that is cleverly layered in pronounced modular synthesizers and a heavy melodic aesthetic between light and darkness. This is a synth pop kaleidoscope that sounds fresh while echoing classic synthpop artists such as Depeche Mode, which is not surprising considering that these British pioneers number among their main creative influences, along with Nine Inch Nails and Duran Duran.

Today, Watch Clark is Paul Furio and Megan Shear. This album was written from 2015 to 2017 in Seattle’s Studio Corvus.

“This is an incredibly personal album,” says Paul Furio. “The last two years were filled with turmoil, politically and personally, and only through music could I really express my feelings. These are songs about love and loss, seduction and betrayal, self-loathing and transformation.”

Furio learned to play guitar, in particular, for three new songs and enlisted friend and fellow Seattle-based musician Kasson Crooker (Freezepop, Symbion Project) for mixing and additional programming.

“The album, and in fact the band name and titles, pay homage to my favorite horror movie, John Carpenter’s The Thing,” admits Furio. “There are obvious allusions to dialog and taglines, and the first and last songs bookend the events in the film. It’s very much about paranoia, questioning who and what you are, but there’s a hopefulness that comes through the despair.”