From The Desk Of Clinic’s Ade Blackburn: “Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel”

A lot has changed since Clinic first shell-shocked the scene in the late ’90s with a waxen trio of blitzkrieg EPs, and the many rave reviews and rarefied Radiohead comparisons that followed its earliest albums, 2000’s Internal Wrangler and 2002’s Walking With Thee. Born during those final twilight hours of the music industry’s money-minting heyday, Clinic has defiantly survived the many upheavals and unthinking revolutions that surround the working band in the internet age. Free Reign (Domino) is Clinic’s seventh album, as well as the most focused and singular of the band’s career to date. Frontman Ade Blackburn will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Clinic feature.

Blackburn: Reading Richard Brautigan always seemed like the perfect antidote to being an adult to me. He’s usually classified as a “hippie” writer due to his childlike style, although there was a lot more to his writing. This novel manages to be exceptionally funny, whilst mainly being about a hat falling from the sky. Quite an achievement. It’s also occasionally interwoven with the writer’s desperate break up with his Japanese girlfriend. The break up takes place in a waste-paper basket. I found it an ideal Sunday-night book—one to read after a severe weekend.

Video after the jump.