Imagine an album programmed by a focus group of John Peel fanatics. While a panel of po-faced music biz types munch pizza on the other side of a one-way mirror, the assembled students, doalies and adolescents at heart would throw together the most important ingredients in their world. Production by The Fall. Keyboard by Stereolab. Guitar by Television. Touches of Prolapse, Gallon Drunk, Experimental Pop Band. Mood: nocturnal.
Previously known for wearing surgeons' masks, supporting Radiohead and making a mostly indigestible left-handed indie racket, Clinic in 2002 are the Peel Focus Group's dream come true. Their vision of alternative music is strangely old-fashioned, a nostalgic trip back to the Camden Falcon in 1992 almost. You can practically smell the damp basement these songs were thrashed out in, picture the wilfully small-time ethos that fuels every dampened note.
This is neither a criticism nor a recommendation. Parts of 'Walking With Thee' seem fresh because they come unfettered with the drooling ambition or rampant misanthropy that so often blights 21st century noise. You can hear Clinic feeling their way in the dark on this album, taking tiny footsteps, tucking away tiny achievements, and you can't help but approve. But even so, their scope of vision is so minuscule that you also wonder why they're bothering.
The answer comes during the clarinet solo in 'The Vulture'. Conjuring up images of a sixth form Velvet Underground writing their first songs in the music room after school on a Wednesday afternoon, it spirals up and around the scales, never making much of a passionate point but leaving a mesmeric vapour trail as it goes. Clinic aren't interested in blown minds and new horizons. They're staring at the pavement, finding life in the cracks in the concrete.
As such then, 'Walking With Thee' is as good as such a determinedly agoraphobic album can be. 'Sunlight Bathes Our Home' sounds like PJ Harvey's backing band jamming on half a notion while Polly goes to answer the phone. 'The Equaliser' is Prolapse (think: shouty kraut cabaret) covering 'Love To Love You Baby'. 'Harmony' is kindergarten motorik with vocals pitched halfway between Thom Yorke and Neil Tennant. On paper, ideas that seem to bulge beyond the pub backroom. In reality, less so.
Ultimately, you have to ask yourself two questions about this record. One: is it important? And two: does it really matter if it isn't? Answer no to both and Clinic, you suspect, will congratulate themselves on a job well done.
