Clock DVA are an enigma. The Sheffield-based band – named after Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange and dva, the Russian word for “two” – has, in truth, always been the project of vocalist and synthesiser researcher Adolphus “Adi” Newton. Before founding Clock DVA in 1978, he had played with members of Cabaret Voltaire and what would later become Heaven 17.
Line-up and sound shifted with almost every album – with a clear trend towards reduction. For several decades now, Newton has been the only remaining member. When the band recorded their debut White Souls in Black Suits in 1980, they were still a sextet. Alongside guitar, bass and drums, the line-up included synthesiser, saxophone, flute and clarinet.
They pursued a collision of wildly different styles – from the Stooges’ proto-punk to electronic music, including musique concrète, all the way to the audiovisual concepts of the Velvet Underground. Out of an estimated eight hours of supposedly free improvisation came this decidedly peculiar amalgam, and it helps to remember that Dadaism was an important influence for Cabaret Voltaire as well.
One should expect neither conventional songs nor coherent industrial-noise epics; rather, it feels like witnessing a ritual whose inner logic remains obscured. The binding element is Newton’s guttural voice, with which he speaks more than he sings – incantatory, foreboding. Fittingly, one piece is titled »Contradict«.
