Jack O' The Clock - All My Friends CD
SKU
JOTC 003
This is the group's third album. Fred Frith had this to say about their second album:
"Jack o’the Clock are an unbelievably great band, Damon Waitkus is an extraordinarily courageous composer, and this is some of the freshest and most surprising music I’ve heard since, well, since their first record. Hallelujah!"
That's really some praise and should make even the most jaded of you give this a glance. The band was originally sent my way by Scott Brazieal, ex-Cartoon, and I was interested in what I heard even before I saw that quote! The band call themselves 'majestic junk folk' and that's a pretty funny but not inaccurate description for a band who blend folk music and experimental music together in a way that sometimes is a bit reminscent of some aspects of Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores, but folkier and even more song-oriented, while just as exploratory - albeit in a 'gentler' way. The line up / instruments used get the general feeling across:
Damon Waitkus - voice, guitar, hammer dulcimer, etc.
Emily Packard - violins, psaltery, melodica, etc.
Kate McLoughlin - bassoon, voice, flute
Jason Hoopes - bass, voice
Jordan Glenn - drums, accordion, mallet percussion
Guests:
Art Elliot - church organ
Ivor Holloway - tenor sax
Marielle Jakobsons - waterphone
Darren Johnston - trumpet
Nicci Reisnour - harp, wine glasses
Jonathan Russell - clarinet
Andrew Strain - trombone
Cory Wright - clarinet
Ian Forsythe - no-input mixer
Dave McNally and Neil Hodge - rhodes/drum loop
You honestly have never heard anything else that sounds like this group!
"All My Friends is the culmination of four years of us getting to know one another as people and musicians, featuring a mix of pieces we’ve been refining on stage since the five of us started playing together back in 2009, and new material composed in the studio.
The album is a series of vignettes on personal relationships in all their uniqueness and difficult sublimity. Its thirteen pieces showcase our usual core of voices, violin, guitar, hammer dulcimer, bassoon, bass and drums, in addition to an expanded woodwind/brass section, guzheng, no-input mixer, and found objects like wine glasses, corrugated pipes, heating grates, and more."