Anyone glancing at Jack O’ The Clock’s vast and varied array of instruments could be forgiven for thinking that they are some sort of folk-revivalists or pop chamber orchestral, but the reality is that they are…well, that is quite difficult to put into words. Imagine if Jethro Tull had taken a pop route or Steely Dan had opted to be a folk band or if Wilco had been conservatoire trained …and even that doesn’t really do things justice. Perhaps you should just listen to the album and make up your own mind.
Because_Portraits_ is a fascinating album, seventeen songs that wander the musical landscape, and whilst they certainly skirt prog and orchestral realms, not to mention plunge headling through folk, roots and pop pastures, they do so on their own terms, almost as if they pass through those places with at least one foot in a different dimension.
Take a song like “I’m Okay, You’re a Shithead,” aside from the title being far removed from the more refined and rarefied air of the classical world, it blends frantic folk textures with alt-pop tones, plays with delicate piano interludes and runs on an almost gypsy-rock vibe. Try finding that category in the local record store!
Some songs seem to conform to more traditional pop rules and regulations, such as “In The Gold Saloon,” which is quite yacht-rockish apart from some affected and unexpected interludes, and “The Gardener” and its hippy-folk finesse. But mostly, their songs are about being adventurous and just slightly avant-garde.
Songs like “Nature Abhors a Vacuum” and its clockwork beats, “Isolation Booth’s” soaring sonics, and “Year of the Gypsy Moths” and its operatic vocals, oriental vibes, and 70’s alternative musical theatre soundtrack ingenuity.
I feel that I fall short, however much I try to capture Jack O’The Clock’s sound in mere words, which is always a limited medium for such explanations. But that is just the sign of a band doing something so brilliant that listening to the music they produce is the only way to understand what is going on…and even then, an incredible feeling of wilful and wonderful bewilderment is never far away. What is life without a bit of mystery and bewilderment anyway?
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