"T.K." Clinic

T.K.



Internal Wrangler 2001.

Nothing else sounds like this album. Coming out of Liverpool, there's a bit of expectation that weighs pretty heavily on a band. How to combat this? Well, wearing surgical masks onstage is one way to go, and if you sound like Clinic, at least at this point in their careers, I don't care if you're wearing the pelts of endangered species on your loins. Actually, I would probably not really be into that. I prefer unguarded loins.

When listening to Internal Wrangler (and what the fuck does that mean?), which I ranked 4th in our UTR Best of 2000 list- after Kid A, Stankonia and The Moon and Antarctica, I don't hear anything else. You know how you listen to some bands and you keep hearing what came before them? How once you figure out a band that's influenced a band all you can hear is that for a while? Well, at the beginning of "T.K." I hear the sound of a door opening on Star Trek, but other than that, I don't know. It sounds like some RZA soundtrack for a movie that never got made. Or hasn't been made yet. Because it sounds simultaneously brand new and old. And did then, too. It's timeless music in a kind of disconcerting way.

I don't know what any of the lyrics are, really, except for that "Come on come on come on, now don't be gauche." Although listening to it now, louder, I wonder if it's "Come on come on come on, oh don't be ghosts." Which would be badass. I was going to look them up, but why ruin it? Why care?

I don't know if this is my favorite song on this album, "Distortions" or "2/4" probably wins that honor, but "T.K." seems the most Clinic-y of all these tracks. Clinic is the strangest band I know of, in a good way, because nothing they do seems like it should go together AT ALL, the buzzsaw guitars, the thumping percussion, the odd sound effects (like someone saying "MMM" or "Ooo" in that distorted way), and the high-pitched vocals of the awesomely named Ade Blackburn are all totally different, and yet with pure ferocity and confidence, they've created something totally unique. Who else can I say that about?