REVIEW: Clinic, Clinic (Domino U.K.)
- Tim Kennedy
Clinic are a band from Liverpool and Manchester but they sound more like Americans. Their influences seem to be the garage punk explosion of the sixties but with flourishes borrowed from as different sources as Phil Spector and Syd Barret era Floyd. The band is eclectic to the bone and attempt everything from rockabilly to ambient.
Live, they sometimes don surgical masks which puts a bizarre spin on their otherwise minimal stage presence. The band are fairly nondescript in the flesh, singer Ade Blackburn crouching at a tiny seemingly homemade keyboard when not playing guitar.
The album is a compilation of the band's first few singles. "IPC subeditors dictate our youth" sounds like sixties punks ? and the Mysterians but with Phil Spector at the controls - the track opens with the classic Hal Blaine drumbeat from the Ronettes' "Be My Baby".
"Porno" begins with a sinister bassline akin to the Cure in their darkest moments and vicious fuzz guitar. Spectoresque drums give another dimension to this psych number.
"DP" is vintage 1977 UK punk with lyrics seemingly in French. "Monkey on my back" displays a similar aggressive spirit albeit with elements of 60s surf punk as played by early Jesus and Mary Chain (if they had been able to play). "DT" is another crossover of 60s and 70s punk styles, with the spirit of Iggy Pop in attendance. "Evil bill" uses a beatbox in classic JAMC style, the guitar way back in the mix, meandering gleefully and menacingly.
"Cement Mixer" uses a punk guitar assault straight out of "Interstellar Overdrive" the classic psych punk track by Syd Barrett's Floyd. The vocals are particularly rough leading the listener to wonder at the cheap and nasty production values on this music which paradoxically enhances its appeal.
"Kimberley" owes a lot to reggae genius Augustus Pablo whose melodian style is borrowed throughout. The lyrics are again hard to decipher but a dark sense of humour is here - "Like sister and brother we come for each other" (borrowing from a cheesy 70s pop record the author of which I have thankfully forgotten). The track is not strictly reggae - more a hybrid of Velvets and King Tubby. "Voot" continues the languid pace of its predecessor with an instrumental, decorated by soaring guitar straight out of the Velvets.
This is music for music's sake, not for fashion. Clinic are rough, very rough. This is punk music, but music made up of such diverse elements that are combined with such eager and dark invention that taken as a whole indicate a considerable talent at work.
