OUT TODAY VIA THE GREY AREA OF MUTE
CLOCK DVA release the 45th Anniversary reissue of Thirst today,remastered andout on double Thirst-Red vinyl, CD and digitally via The Grey Area of Mute.
While still retaining the sharp experimental edge of their debut, White Souls in Black Suits, its follow up, Thirst, is a stone-cold post-punk classic that stretches out and offers up some cleaner and more hooky moments as it moves away from pure improvisation. “Between White Souls and Thirst, the guitarist changed from David Hammond to Paul Widger,” explains Newton. “David introduced the perfect guitar sound for DVA in the original phase of Clock DVA, whereas Paul brought in a more rhythmic style more towards early Ry Cooder. The material we were developing was a more defined series of pieces, more structured and exact than the improvised works on White Souls and the earlier experimental electronics.”
45 years on from its original release [on Fetish], Thirst is a record from the era that sounds like no other. There’s jazz-inflected post-punk, helped by Charlie Collins’ wonderfully inventive sax playing, but also nods to more Beefheart-esque wonky grooves – aided by Newton’s raspy growls – while tracks like ‘4 Hours’ also hit home the group’s real knack for incorporating catchy songcraft with the infectious song containing an almost new wave shimmer.
Thirst was the first evidence of what would soon become a customary part of Clock DVA’s evolution: they never made the same record twice. No copies or dilution but instead ceaseless progression. “We set out to form a new sound combination,” says Clock DVA’s Adi Newton. “To combine acoustics and electronics, merging the German electronic wave with the edge of The Stooges, the avant-garde of the French GRM Musique Concrète, and the pioneering audio-visual creativity of The Velvet Underground. To create a harder form of electronic music with real energy.”
Featuring stand out tracks such as ‘Sensorium’ and ‘4 Hours’ – the sole single at the time of the original release, and ne of The Face and Rockerilla’s Singles of the Year 1981, it went on to be one of NME’s Best Indie Singles Ever and Blow Up’s 100 Songs to Remember.
Both tracks also include a new DVATION 2026 mix, by the current iteration of Clock DVA Listen to these HERE and HERE.
Thirst is out now on The Grey Area of Mute on 5 June 2026
Clock DVA formed in Sheffield in 1978. Inspired by science fiction, Russian constructivism and beat literature, they soon created a unique sonic alchemy that – for the best part of the last half century – has proven to be an endlessly influential reference point across everything from avant-garde electronics and post-punk to EBM via industrial and techno.
Thirst features Adi Newton (voice, clarinet, manipulated tapes, piano, modified guitar, EMS Synthi E), Steven J Turner (bass / treatments), Charlie Collins (saxophones, African flute, African thumb piano), Paul Widger (guitar) and Roger Quail (drums). The album was recorded at Jacobs Studio in Surrey, produced / engineers by Ken Thomas and Clock DVA, and the album’s unforgettable artwork was by graphic designer and typographer Neville Brody OBE (The Face, Arena, Cabaret Voltaire, Depeche Mode).
THIRST TRACKLISTING (CAT # DVA2)
1. Uncertain
2. Sensorium
3. White Cell
4. Piano Pain
5. Blue Tone
6. North Loop
7. 4 Hours
8. Moments
9. Impressions of African Winter
10. The Opening (Live at The Lyceum)
11. Remain Remain (Live at The Lyceum)
12. 4 Hours (Single Mix)
13. Sensorium (Single Mix)
14. 4 Hours (DVATION 2026 Version)
15. Sensorium (DVATION 2026 Version)
PRAISE FOR THE REMASTER OF WHITE SOULS IN BLACK SUITS
“… cuts across boundaries” – MOJO
“… still sounds powerful, a glimpse of the early industrial sound before the movement became codified into a genre” – UNCUT
“… an avant-garde exhibition of atonal electronics, skronking saxophone and jagged guitars interspersed with Adi Newton’s malevolent whispers” – ELECTRONIC SOUND
“…testament to an era of experimentation that paved the way for so much that followed” – BLITZED
“…an important document” – CLASSIC POP
“a vital rediscovery—an album that helped define the early intersections of industrial, post-punk, and proto-EBM” – IGLOO
