Clinic Fantasy Island CD

Clinic announce their ninth studio album Fantasy Island, via Domino. A vibrant and eclectic LP, over twelve tracks, the Grammy-nominated North West-based duo transport us to tropical climes.

Fantasy Island was recorded in an old studio on Merseyside during the summer of 2019, with good vibrations seeping into the grooves, “Clinic look to a brighter future,” reveal the band in a soundbite. Their last album, 2019’s Wheeltappers and Shunters, found the band satirising British culture and wallowing in sleazy Seventies nostalgia. This time they are embracing the “the idea of looking at the future and the different ways it can unfold”, with their most electronic and pop record to date.

Referencing H.G. Wells’ Things to Come, Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage and Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan, the themes Clinic explore on this album are time, music and entertainment. In a (coco) nutshell, Clinic have gone funky disco, broadening their sonic palette with the addition of several new gadgets including an electronic acid bass machine, a 1970s cocktail rhythm unit, a Casio digital horn and space drum. This gear comes to the fore in the centrepiece of Fantasy Island, the incredible “Refractions (In the Rain)”, which nods to the Human League with its strident synthesizer lines and danceable beats, with the groovy, swaggering menace that Clinic always bring to the party.