Exploratory Surgery: Clinic

| Print Post This | Like (0) | Comments (0)

Express contributor Aaron Leitko had a "Visitation" with the U.K. psyche-rock band Clinic.

Photo courtesy Tag Team Media

WITH THEIR SINISTER-LOOKING surgical masks and slanted robotic garage rock, the four men of Liverpool's Clinic hardly look like bunch of comedians. However, singer/keyboardist Ade Blackburn insists that they do posses a sense of humor. "Our melodies, they're very tongue and cheek," he said during a phone interview. "We're not fond of music that's overly serious."

When asked to prove it, Blackburn highlighted a moment from the band's latest record, "Visitations." The song "Children of Kellogg" begins with Clinic's signature throbbing rhythms and distorted guitars, but makes a sudden shift into sleazy R&B guitar territory that's reminiscent of Captain Beefheart's "I'm Glad." Things get more surreal when the sound of a hacksaw starts drifting around the stereo field. "It's quite a ridiculous juxtaposition," Blackburn pointed out. "I like that."

Clinic recorded "Visitations" in its own recently completed studio, which allowed the band ample time to both experiment with such topsy-turvy song structures and refine the band's unique Residents-meets-garage-rock sound. "When we first started, our songs were all based on distorted keyboard riffs. Now we pay more attention to rhythm," said Blackburn. "The earlier stuff was more frantic; now we have room to breathe."

When most bands are given unlimited studio time, they tend to call up the nearest orchestra or bury themselves psychedelic soundscapes, but Clinic took the opposite approach, stripping the songs down to give "Visitations" a sound that was more raw and more energetic than the group's previous two records.

"The music that we do suits having an energy to it," said Blackburn. "Recording ourselves meant that there was more urgency to it. "Winchester" ["Winchester Cathedral," Clinic's third LP] was more studio; this one cuts it down something more direct."

Of course, Clinic won't be sharing that energy with an audience very often. The band has booked only a week's worth of U.S. tour dates in support of "Visitations." Clinic's show Tuesday night at the Black Cat might be the only chance you have to see the group for a while.

"We just didn't want to do a really drawn out tour," Blackburn said. "We just wanted to carry on doing music without having it broken up — sometimes it feels like you spend more time selling the album than you do actually making it."

» Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW; with Holy F***, Tues., 8 p.m., $13; 202-667-7960. (U St.-Cardozo)