C.O.M.A. was a short-lived new-wave-meets-avant-garde band from France. They emerged from the ashes of an equally short-lived punk band called Chaos, which did not put out any music during its lifetime but saw the release of a four-song 7″ in 2018 called White Punks On Slope comprised of tracks recorded four decades earlier in 1977. Patrick Blain was a member of both groups, along with Philippe Ross. Following the disappearance of C.O.M.A. Blain went on to form his best known group, Charles de Goal. And “best known” is certainly a stretch as I’m guessing most music fans have never heard of them. Hell, I have one of their records and until I was researchig this post I didn’t even realize it.
Clinik Organik Muzak Anatomik is some fairly wild stuff. “Tête de Gomme” combines a driving guitar with a bloopy synth and croaked vocals and jazz-timed drum breakdowns to somehow sound pre-modern, modern, and post-modern all at once. “Femme-Robot” brings a rat-a-tat-tat drumming and synth that feels like someone stabbing you behind the eyes with acupuncture needles, not exactly causing pain, but leaving you feeling the uncomfortable pressure. “Coma” is built around two incessant, low piano notes overlaid with static-filled spoken vocals and heavy breathing. And it goes on like this – every song completely different than everything that came before it, or that will come after it, all if it mildly unsettling and yet somehow having a through line that gives the whole thing a certain feeling of… je ne sais quoi, if I may dip into my high school French to speak the language of the artists themselves.
In 2013 Clinik Organik Muzak Anatomik got it’s first vinyl re-release, an edition of 1,000 copies by the French label Danger Records, and you can even hear it on the label’s Bandcamp page HERE. A year later it got its first, and so far only, CD release by Desire Records, the disc containing four bonus tracks that weren’t on the original.