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Oct 18, 2021 By Mark Redfern Photography by Sentinel

Liverpool post-punks Clinic are releasing a new album, Fantasy Island, this Friday via Domino. Now they have shared its fourth and final pre-release single, “Refractions (In the Rain).” Listen below.

In a press release describes the song in more detail: “‘Refractions’ nods to The Human League with its strident synthesizer lines, danceable beats, and Clinic’s signature groovy, swaggering menace, as the singer growls, ‘Take us into the future say the people that play the music.’ At the fore are the new additions to Clinic’s sonic palette: an acid bass machine, a 1970s cocktail rhythm unit, a Casio digital horn, and space drum.”

Fantasy Island includes “Fine Dining,” a new song the band shared in June via a video for it. “Fine Dining” was one of our Songs of the Week. Then when the album was announced Clinic shared its second single, title track “Fantasy Island,” also via a video (and also one of our Songs of the Week). Then they shared its third single, which was a cover of Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain.”

Clinic’s last album was 2019’s Wheeltappers and Shunters, which was their first new album in seven years. Since their last album the quartet has become a duo, with Ade Blackburn and Jonathan Hartley listed as members in a press release, but no mention of Brian Campbell or Carl Turney. The lineup had remained the same since the band’s 1997 formation, until now.

Fantasy Island was recorded in the summer of 2019. Claudius Mittendorfer (Parquet Courts, Neon Indian) mixed the album. In a previous press release the band said they are embracing “the idea of looking at the future and the different ways it can unfold.” The press release called it “their most electronic and pop record to date” and name drops The Human League, Fun Boy Three, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, and early 1980s pop music as influences on the album.

The previous press release went into more detail as to the themes of Fantasy Island: “Referencing H.G. Wells’ Things to Come, Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage, and Richard Brautigan’s Sombrero Fallout, 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 centerpiece of Fantasy Island, the incredible ‘Refractions (In the Rain),’ which nods to The Human League with its strident synthesizer lines, danceable beats, and the groovy, swaggering menace that Clinic always bring to the party.”

Read our 2019 interview with Clinic.

Clinic’s Ade Blackburn recently sang guest vocals on “Illusions,” a new song by electronic rock duo Gone to Color, from their self-titled debut album due on October 25.

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