Clive Langer - The Clang Group, Deaf School

Clive Langer in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://newclang.bandcamp.com/album/new-clang

Best known as one of the UK’s most successful record producers with a string of high-profile credits in his portfolio, CLIVE LANGER returns in the new year with a second album from his band project, THE CLANG GROUP.A belated follow-up to 2016’s Practice, the Group’s maiden outing for Domino Records, New Clang was recorded with Deaf School co-conspirators John Wood (aka Max Ripple) and Gregg Braden, along with former Klaxons bassist Jamie Reynolds. Written and recorded in the aftermath of Clive’s 70th birthday, New Clang is adeeply personal but incredibly vibrant album; catching Clive in reflective mode, the songs address the process of ageing and the state of the world,as well as confronting his own addiction to alcohol.“

After the pandemic, the dust settled, it felt like it was time, a new time, to play again,” he explains. “Not to revisit but to write and rehearse with my Clang Group mates. We were missing a bass player and fortuitously I met Jamie Reynolds and he filled the vacancy. The songs started to flow, we were back in the groove!”“The new album is the first sober songwriting I think I’ve done in almost 50 years,” he adds. “I’ve known and accepted that I was an addict for decades... I just didn’t do anything about it. I thought I could live with it, I still enjoyed it. Someone once asked me ‘What do you do?’ I replied ‘I drink’. Anyway, making an album sober was like making an album drunk except I wassober!!”

Packaged in spare black-on-white, suggesting a tabula rasaof sorts, New Clang’s distinctive sleeve artis the work of British artist Edwin Burdis, whom Clive met during his time with Domino Records. “Clive asked me to a studio in London to listen to his new album, still a work in progress,” recalls Edwin. “I was struck by the contrast between the upbeat music and its underlying melancholy, evoking clowns and cartoon characters and a nostalgia for London’s recent past. At the time, I had been drawing simple cartoon motifs that aligned perfectly with Clive's songs. I wanted the campaign to be cohesive—black-and-white graphics that blend humour with a sense of tragedy and sadness.”

A founder member of pioneering Liverpool art-rockers Deaf School, Langer is noted for a string of production credits (usually in collaboration with Alan Winstanley) on hits forthe likes of Dexys Midnight Runners (the no.1 single and album ‘Come On Eileen’ and Too-Rye-Ay)andDavid Bowie(‘Absolute Beginners’) plus numerous landmark releasesfor Elvis Costello, Madness, Morrissey, The Teardrop Explodes, China Crisis, Bush, They Might Be Giants, The Rockingbirds and, more recently, Fat White Family.