Jack O' The Clock: Portraits

Way back in 2003 Damon Waitkus and Emily Packard recorded a bunch of songs in a basement in a house in Providence. The pair was quite ambitious, gravitating to neo-classical elements on top of folk, but the tape was shelved soon after and they forgot about it. When it resurfaced Waitkus loved the music, but the words were not that good to put it mildly. He set himself to work to write fresh lyrics and, with Brad Mehlenbacher on drums and Roger Vaughan on bass, the tracks were given a fresh coat of paint to turn it into a Jack O' The Clock album.

Portraits is a progressive folk record, a collection of short stories - some of them surreal, others pretty straightforward and sometimes even without words at all - that should be listened to without outside interference. It proves that Waitkus was an adventurous composer from the get-go. with a couple of deacades worth of life experience his refurbished lyrics have caught up with his skills as a musician.

Portraits is a self-released album. Buy it from their website.

Tracks:

1. Josephine's Fresh Cuts
2. I'm OK, You're a Shithead
3. No. 4 Mountain
4. Another Sunny Day/Star of Monster
5. Year of the Gypsy Moths
6. In the Gold Coin Saloon
7. My Life's Not Wasted
8. Lazy Tom Bog
9. The Gardener
10. Nature Abhors a Vacuum
11. Puer 1
12. Twomile Island
13. Isolation Booth
14. Stone Cold Steve Cactus In Mojave
15. Windigo Knocking
16. It's Hard To Find Booze On Sunday
17. Puer 2

» jackotheclock.com

HCTF review of The Warm, Dark Circus.