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Jack o' the Clock — Portraits
(Bandcamp no#, 2025, DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2025-03-06

Portraits Cover art

By my count, Portraits is the eleventh Jack o’ the Clock album, and it’s a wonderful blend of old and new in terms of their style. For the old, we have the intricate composition we’ve come to know and love, where acoustic guitar and violin meld with hammer dulcimer, bassoon, and other instruments in a melange of chamber music and American folk music — all intercut with electric instruments to form a sophisticated flavor of progressive rock. The new on Portraits is an uncharacteristic conciseness, arranging their elements into seventeen songs, several of which are less than two minutes long. Each track is packed full of fascinating ideas, and while it’s true that standard song forms are not the norm, the music seems to have a certain accessibility without sacrificing any of the eccentricities of the band. The origin of the music involves a set of recordings made by Damon Waitkus (guitar, hammer dulcimer, keyboards, and various other instruments) and Emily Packard (violin) back in 2002 with some contributions from Brad Mehlenbacher (drums) and Roger Vaughan (bass), along with a few others on various instruments here and there. When Waitkus revisited the old tapes, he found that the music still worked for him, though many of the lyrics didn’t, so he set about augmenting the old tapes with new words and additional tracks, including some from Victor Reynolds (bass, piano, guitar) and Kate McLoughlin (bassoon); various of the members sing as well. A vacuum cleaner is also involved in the song “Nature Abhors a Vacuum.” In spite of this hybrid origin story for the album, it is a great set of music completely worthy of taking a place in the discography of this band. Portraits is complex enough to appeal to fans of RIO and the more experimental side of progressive rock, but also melodic enough to work for those who like their music catchier and more easily absorbed

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Jack o' the Clock

More info
http://jackotheclock.bandcamp.com/album/portraits

 

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