Clinic Drop Hints About New Album
Poor Clinic just can't win. These guys get booed off the stage if they're not decked out in their trademark OR scrubs, but also panned if their new music sounds too much like their old stuff (see: last year's Winchester Cathedral). Make up your minds, people!
Well, that second complaint might not be valid much longer. According to various sources, Ade Blackburn and crew recently finished recording a self-produced new album that will be, to quote their website, "heavily upbeat and party based". W00t! Get wild in the trauma center!
The disc was recorded in Clinic's studio, the Cooker, in Liverpool, with the same equipment the band used to create their first three EPs. A post on Clinic's site credited to "tape operator" Erasmus Benedict, the band's shadowy longtime associate, describes the record further: "It ranges from several severely fuzzed out riff-manglers to skewed doo wop and raw punk. A pop strain runs through the major tracks, albeit cut-up and turned inside-out." Of course-- we wouldn't want it any other way. He also says that the disc is "less dark" than Winchester Cathedral.
Benedict drops geek/crit-friendly names the Godz, the Searchers, and Henry Flynt, then continues: "The album also features kosmiche acoustic, effects from a deluxe rewiring of the legendary psychedelic machine, and some unearthly loops and rhythms." A-ha, the legendary psychedelic machine! We were wondering where that had been all these years. After we loaned it to Syd Barrett, we assumed it was gone for good.
The message also assures us that the album is "all in all, not punk funk." Good, because we were getting kind of sick of that.
Piddly details like an album title, release date, tracklist, or what label will carry the thing have not been revealed yet, although Benedict says that current song titles include "Children of Kellogg", "Lee Shan", and "Animal/Human". The album is tentatively slated for release sometime early in 2006, with a single, "Tusk", preceding it. Clinic do Fleetwood Mac? Will the marching band wear scrubs too?
