Clock DVA is an
Industrial musicIndustrial music is an experimental music style, often including electronic music, that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s to describe Industrial Records artists...
,
Post-PunkPost-punk is a popular musical movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
and
EBMEBM may stand for:* Ecosystem based management* Electron beam melting, a solid freeform fabrication technique for creating solid metal parts from CAD* Electronic body music, a music genre...
group from
SheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city has grown from its largely industrial roots to encompass a wider economic base...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The group was formed in 1978, with two members, Adi Newton and Steven "Judd" Turner. Along with contemporaries
Heaven 17Heaven 17 are a British synthpop band originating from Sheffield in the early 1980s. The trio comprises Martyn Ware , Ian Craig Marsh and Glenn Gregory...
, Clock DVA's name was inspired by the
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-influenced
NadsatNadsat is a fictional register or argot used by the teenagers in Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange. In addition to being a novelist, Burgess was also a linguist and he used this background to depict his characters as speaking a form of Russian-influenced English...
of
Anthony BurgessJohn Burgess Wilson was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic....
'
A Clockwork OrangeA Clockwork Orange is a dystopian novel by Anthony Burgess.The title is taken from an old Cockney expression, "as queer as a clockwork orange".¹, and alludes to the prevention of the main character's exercise of his free will through the use of a classical conditioning technique...
; "dva" is the Russian word for "two". Adi had previously worked with members of
Cabaret VoltaireCabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zurich, Switzerland that was a center for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...
in a collective called The Studs and with
Ian Craig MarshIan Craig Marsh is a former English musician. He was a founding member of the electronic band The Human League, writing and playing on their first two albums and several singles, until leaving in 1980 to form B.E.F...
and
Martyn WareMartyn Ware is a British musician and music producer. As a founder member of both The Human League and Heaven 17, he was partly responsible for hit records such as "Being Boiled" and "Temptation"...
in a band called The Future.
Clock DVA is an
Industrial musicIndustrial music is an experimental music style, often including electronic music, that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s to describe Industrial Records artists...
,
Post-PunkPost-punk is a popular musical movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
and
EBMEBM may stand for:* Ecosystem based management* Electron beam melting, a solid freeform fabrication technique for creating solid metal parts from CAD* Electronic body music, a music genre...
group from
SheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city has grown from its largely industrial roots to encompass a wider economic base...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The group was formed in 1978, with two members, Adi Newton and Steven "Judd" Turner. Along with contemporaries
Heaven 17Heaven 17 are a British synthpop band originating from Sheffield in the early 1980s. The trio comprises Martyn Ware , Ian Craig Marsh and Glenn Gregory...
, Clock DVA's name was inspired by the
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-influenced
NadsatNadsat is a fictional register or argot used by the teenagers in Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange. In addition to being a novelist, Burgess was also a linguist and he used this background to depict his characters as speaking a form of Russian-influenced English...
of
Anthony BurgessJohn Burgess Wilson was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic....
'
A Clockwork OrangeA Clockwork Orange is a dystopian novel by Anthony Burgess.The title is taken from an old Cockney expression, "as queer as a clockwork orange".¹, and alludes to the prevention of the main character's exercise of his free will through the use of a classical conditioning technique...
; "dva" is the Russian word for "two". Adi had previously worked with members of
Cabaret VoltaireCabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zurich, Switzerland that was a center for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...
in a collective called The Studs and with
Ian Craig MarshIan Craig Marsh is a former English musician. He was a founding member of the electronic band The Human League, writing and playing on their first two albums and several singles, until leaving in 1980 to form B.E.F...
and
Martyn WareMartyn Ware is a British musician and music producer. As a founder member of both The Human League and Heaven 17, he was partly responsible for hit records such as "Being Boiled" and "Temptation"...
in a band called The Future. Ian and Martyn went on to found
The Human LeagueThe Human League are a British synthpop band. Formed in Sheffield in 1977, they achieved popularity after a key change in line-up in the early 1980s...
.
History
The group was originally known for making a form of
experimentalExperimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-twentieth century, particularly in North America, and whose most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
electronic music involving treated tape loops and synthesisers. Clock DVA became associated with
industrial musicIndustrial music is an experimental music style, often including electronic music, that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s to describe Industrial Records artists...
with the 1980 release of their
albumAn album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. The most common way is through commercial distribution, although smaller artists will often distribute directly to the public by selling their albums at live concerts or on their websites.-...
White Souls in Black Suits on
Throbbing GristleThrobbing Gristle is a British industrial music and visual arts group that evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions. The band consists of Genesis P-Orridge , Cosey Fanni Tutti , Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson , and Chris Carter Throbbing Gristle is a British industrial music and...
's
Industrial RecordsIndustrial Records was a record label established in 1976 by art/music group Throbbing Gristle. The group, fronted by Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Chris Carter, and Peter Christopherson, were to release their experiments in non-entertainment sound and multimedia through the label; in...
. The album
Thirst, released on Fetish Records, followed in 1981 to a favourable critical reaction, knocking
Adam and the AntsAdam and the Ants were a British rock band band during the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were one of the bands at the time that marked the transition from the 70s punk rock era to the New Wave/post-punk era....
'
Dirk Wears White SoxDirk Wears White Sox is Adam and the Ants' first album, released on Do It Records in 1979, before Adam went on to fame with "Kings of the Wild Frontier". Dirk Wears White Sox features a much more eclectic, sometimes brooding sound than Ant's later work...
from the top of the
NMEThe New Musical Express is a popular music magazine in the United Kingdom which has been published weekly since March 1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, which first appeared in the 14 November 1952 edition. The magazine's commercial heyday was during the 1970s when it...
Indie Charts, by which time the band had combined
musique concrèteMusique concrète , is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource...
techniques with standard rock instrumentation. The band split up in 1981, with the non original members of the band going on to form The Box.
In 1983, Newton formed a new version of the band. First releasing the single "High Holy Disco Mass" on the major label
Polydor RecordsPolydor Records is a record label currently headquartered in the UK, and is a subsidiary of Universal Music Group.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used, as an export label, in 1924, the British and German branches...
under the name
DVA, the band then released the album
Advantage (with several singles) under the name Clock DVA. After a European tour, however, the band split acrimoniously.
After the 1983 breakup of Clock DVA, Adi Newton formed
The Anti-GroupThe Anti-Group Company, or T.A.G.C. are a side project of Clock DVA.Formed in the early 1980s by Adi Newton , T.A.G.C...
or T.A.G.C.. They released several albums continuing in a similar vein to the early Clock DVA, yet more experimental.
In 1987, Adi Newton reactivated DVA and invited Dean Dennis and Paul Browse back into the fold to aid Newton's use of computer aided sampling techniques which he had been developing in the Anti Group. The album
Buried Dreams, an electronic album which received critical acclaim as a pioneering work. Browse left the group in 1989 and was replaced by R E Baker. The album
Man-Amplified was the next album to be released, an exploration of
cyberneticsCybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to control theory and systems theory...
.
Digital Soundtracks, an instrumental album, was the next release. Following Dennis's departure, Newton and Baker produced the album
Sign.
Adi Newton has now reactivated DVA along with his creative partner Jane Radion Newton in 2008.
Album list
- Lomticks of Time (1978) Cassette
- 2nd (1978) Cassette DVATION 01
- Deep Floor (1979) Cassette DVATION 02
- Fragment (1979) Cassette DVATION 03
- White Souls In Black Suits (1980) Cassette Industrial Records
Industrial Records was a record label established in 1976 by art/music group Throbbing Gristle. The group, fronted by Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Chris Carter, and Peter Christopherson, were to release their experiments in non-entertainment sound and multimedia through the label; in...
IRC31
- Thirst (1980) LP Fetish Records FR2002 (UK Indie
The UK Independent Chart or Indie Chart is a chart of the best-selling independent record releases in the UK.-History:In the wake of punk, small record labels began to spring up, as an outlet for artists that were unwilling to sign contracts with major record companies, or were not considered...
#7)
- Advantage (1982) LP Polydor Records
Polydor Records is a record label currently headquartered in the UK, and is a subsidiary of Universal Music Group.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used, as an export label, in 1924, the British and German branches...
POLS 1082
- White Souls in Black Suits (re-released 1982) LP Italian Records EX24
- Advantage (re-released 1989) CD Interfisch 01706-10
- Buried Dreams (1989) CD Interfisch 01717-26; CD Wax Trax! WAXCD 7094; CD Contempo
Contempo can refer to:*Fender Contempo Organ*The University of Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players*Contempo Casuals, a former women's clothing retailer that was acquired by Wet Seal*Contempo , the former band of Richard Archer from Hard-Fi...
CONTEDISC 193
- White Souls in Black Suits (re-released 1990) LP Italian Records EX24
- Transitional Voices (live; 1990) CD Interfisch Records 01718-26; CD Contempo CONTEDISC 194
- Bit Mapping (live bootleg; 1990) CD Dunedin Records 025
- Man-Amplified (1991) CD Contempo CONTEDISC 182
- White Souls In Black Suits (re-released 1992) CD Contempo CONTEDISC 157
- Advantage (re-released 1992) CD Contempo CONTEDISC 191
- Thirst (re-released 1992) CD Contempo CONTEDISC 192
- Digital Soundtracks (1992) CD Contempo CONTE 217
- Tour 1992 (live bootleg; 1992) CD Smurf SMURFCD92-01
- Sign (1993) CD Contempo CONTE 225CD
- Collective (anthology; 1994) CD Cleopatra CLEO94822; CD Sub/Mission CDWHIP003-166700003-2; CD Hypnobeat/SPV 04632
- Collective (anthology; 1994) 3 CD Hyperium/Sub-Mission 391010629
- Buried Dreams (re-released 1998) CD Nextera
Nextera is a pioneering independent Czech record label, founded in Prague in 1989, notable for discovering some of the most enduring artists in dance, ambient and electronic music. It was founded by Kristian Kotarac.- Artists :* Clock DVA* The Hafler Trio...
ERA 9815-2
External links