Chapter 1: February 2002 - April 2005. A New Hope.
Clinigol are two brothers, Geraint and Aled Pickard,
brought up near Pontypridd but now based in Cardiff.
Both lovers of all things dance, Aled was a London club
DJ with a record box firmly situated in the underground
house scene, playing disco and electro (he's so cool),
while Geraint's sensibilities lent more towards
crossover dance, R'n'B, electronic stuff and (heaven
forbid) pop.
Geraint had dabbled in writing for years, but being a
little retarded with computers (and proud of it!), he
lacked the techie knowledge needed to bring a tune to
the dancefloor, so the ideas remained either on paper or
in his head. Then after several conversations moaning
about the lack of Welsh language dance/pop music, Aled
packed up his DJ decks, moved back to Cardiff (bringing
with him the required technical wizardry and equipment)
to form Clinigol (Clinical) in February 2002.
>From the start, our heroes wanted Clinigol to be a pop
music project, with emphasis on melody, but agreeing on
what kind of pop sound became an issue. Initial demos
ranged from trancey stuff to more laid back string-led
tracks. Then during the course of 2003, the demos
produced had a very strong 80's synth-pop feel, so they
both decided to jump on that bandwagon. "Gormod/digon"
and "Golau" were both written during this period - hear
them in the
therapy section.
After meeting while working on "Bang - A Musical
Adventure" for The International Festival of Musical
Theatre in Cardiff in October 2002, Gemma Rhys Jones,
the little lady with a massive voice, became the first
guest vocalist to sign up to the project.
The folksy and smoky voiced Bethan Mason joined soon
after, after being spotted singing in the Gwent Theatre
production of Tinderbox. In January 2004, the band sent
instrumental versions of three tracks to the production
team on the BBC Radio Cymru programme C2, who expressed
an interest in hearing vocal versions of the songs.
Three demo tracks were presented to the production team
in July 2004, "gormod/digon" (excess/enough), "Ymylon"
(the outskirts) and "Eiliad" (a second) and on the
strength of these, commissioned the band to record a
session for the programme. "Gormod/digon" was a winner
from the start, but the BBC wanted a more commercial
sound for the other two other tracks. "Tân" and "Golau"
were accepted in December 2004. The session was recorded
over a few weeks in January 2005 and were first aired on
the 7th April.
Chapter 2: April 2005 - July 2006. The Wilderness
Years or Where Are They Now?
So here's Chapter 2, and what a frustrating year or so
it's been. The initial launch was great, with very
positive feedback, some 700 odd visitors to the website,
some successful and not so successful gigs, a tv
performance that we were all very proud of and most
importantly, we hooked up with Ciwdod, the Welsh
language arm of Cardiff label, Complete Control Music.
Then things went a bit wonky. Geraint went all thespian
and disappeared on a National Tour of Hamlet, Aled
changed jobs 10 times and bought another house, Gemma
went to study at the incredibly prestigious Royal
Academy in London and our 1st guide and mentor from
Ciwdod, believing the future of the human race was more
important than the survival of welsh-language electro
pop, decided to have a baby.
So nothing happened for about six months. Nothing. At
All.
Then after a chance meeting in the Can i Gymru
competition (a welsh Eurovision song contest!), where
Geraint and Esyllt (our new leader from Ciwdod) were
judges on a panel (crazy but true), some enthusiasm was
re-discovered, and a cunning plan was concocted: to
release an EP of 3 songs! Meetings were held, emails
were sent, phone calls were made, more meetings were
held, many months did pass and eventually in July 2006,
the band started working with producer Adam Williams.
The future of Welsh pop music had been secured. What a
relief for everyone.
So what were we going to release?! "Golau" was an
obvious choice really, having had the best reaction from
people over the past year, with Gemma Rhys Jones, I
mean, Gemma Rees back on vocal duties. Same hair -
different name (we're quite sure though it's the same
person). A personal favourite of Geraint and Aled's, "Eiliad"
was the next choice. Finally, Geraint had written some
new stuff at the beginning of 2006, including a wayward
attempt at doing Electronic Crunk (what?!), which turned
out as "Am Wastraff" (What a Waste). Whatever it is, we
loved it enough to add that to the EP.
And it's at this point we welcome another member to the
clinical troupe - actress Siwan Morris, who sings "Am
Wastraff". Geraint and Siwan had recently become
friends. Lost in Siwan's sexy, feisty world of
gravely-sexy voiced-cool-attitude-type-stuff, Geraint
turned to Siwan and asked….. "Can you sing?!". The rest,
as they say, will be history...
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