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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
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