Clock DVA - Breakdown 12''

Ah Adi Newton, what to think of you? In some ways Newton is the most contradictory of artists. Through nearly forty years' work in The Future, Human League, Clock DVA and The Anti-Group Newton has made some joyously simple, affirmative and forward thinking music that nevertheless seems to trigger endless discussion and reinterpretation. Seen but not seen, simple and direct in sound and deed; but yet impossible to pin down. The only album released by Clock DVA's second line up, Advantage is near the band's best. Though there aren't many synthesizers, the focus on jarring tape procedures and noise well into the red lines makes for an intense set of songs, enlivened by Newton's evolved vocal style. The atmosphere is bleak and noir-ish (including a cover of the Velvet Underground's "The Black Angel's Death Song"), quite similar to early Clock DVA material. "Breakdown" was the second single released in support of the album Advantage. 

Clock DVA - Thirst

Appearing in 1980 and allied with industrial bands like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, Sheffield's Clock DVA aped the sound of British white soul groups of the day. Adi Newton had previously worked with members of Cabaret Voltaire in a collective called The Studs and with Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware in a band called The Future. Clock DVA were originally known for making a form of experimental electronic music involving treated tape loops and synthesizer. Clock DVA became associated with industrial music with the 1980 release of their cassette album White Souls in Black Suits by invitation from Genesis P-Orridge on Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records.

The 'post-punk' boom was well under way and word spread like wildfire in the right circles and it wasn't long before Clock DVA achieved its first real record deal with indie underground label, Fetish Records. They released the album Thirst and a single entitled 4 Hours, both produced by Ken Thomas. The material is far less experimental than previous efforts with an emphasis on funk/jazz. Surprisingly, it's still nominally danceable though the emphasis is solidly on the experimental side of affairs.

The album cover greets you with a fantastic illustration which depicts a kind of dark sepia-tinged satanic baby (like a minimal interpretation of one of H.R.Giger's infant beasts), this artwork was done by one of the great sleeve illustrators of the time, Neville Brody. The back cover of this great album sleeve was topped with some inspired and cut-up text from Genesis P-Orridge which served as the sleeve notes, also creating increased excitement and expectation before even listening to the recording. On Thirst, the band maintained an interest in dance music, but abandoned soul pretensions for electro-noise, and the album is a playground of startling, unearthly machine chants. 4 Hours, the single from Thirst, was later covered by former Bauhaus bassist David J on his 1985 solo EP Blue Moods Turning Tail.

Fragments

Formed in Sheffield in 1978, around the core line-up of Adi Newton, Steven Turner, David Hammond, and Simon Elliot-Kemp, Clock DVA built upon the havoc created by their industrial forefathers, Throbbing Gristle, sharing their subversive taste for sonic, moral and political deviance. They were part of a virile and prolific scene, collaborating and consorting with the likes of Coil’s John Balance, Chris Watson, Martin Ware, and Richard H. Kirk in their earliest days to forge a distempered and visceral sound. The heady flux of ideas in 'Fragment' and their darkly seductive film soundtrack 'Fragment Of Hysteria', Clock DVA at once defied categorisation and established the aesthetics of the New Wave to come. ‘Fragment’ was recorded at "Western Works", the recording facility of Industrial buddies, Cabaret Voltaire. Alongside TG, Pere Ubu, and The Pop Group, Clock DVA are genuine pioneers of this most uncompromising branch of music, an absolute must for all followers of electronic/synth/wave/Industrial music.