Spoiler Versions – Jack Adaptor
It has been over 10 years since I bought an album by Jack Adaptor. I got their debut self titled CD and single ‘No Logos’. I’d been really into The Family Cat, so with singer Paul Frederick having a new project with Christopher Cordoba was something I was interested in.
In those 10 years life got in the way of a lot. Not to fear, with the joys of social media, I was pointed in the direction of ‘Spoiler Versions’, the new Jack Adaptor album. My default “want” for a new album is something fast and catchy, this had been my ingrained feeling for years, I want something exciting. As I’ve matured over the years, my ears are more open to more styles and slower tempos. Though I still wonder why Garbage ever bothered with ‘Milk’. I just can’t warm to that song. That’s off topic though.
Let’s start with the artwork, like a section of a finger painted rainbow with many layers, across it a rain of mainly white and silver. Is it a metaphor for the record? Is it art? Am I reading too much into it and it’s just a nice design?
The album begins with Paul’s familiar voice drifts over the top of a slow beat with piano and subdued guitar. It all fits together nicely, I just want to put the big headphones on to block out the world, close my eyes, tune in and listen.
I hate writing things, mainly because I always think of a better way to have written something later, once it’s been released into the wild. As I write this particular sentence, I’m getting perhaps some helpful wisdom from the second track ‘Proven Warrior’. Oh it’s not perfect, but it will have to do for now. A track that sounds like it means business.
A harpsichord and acoustic guitar provide the vehicle for guest vocalist Claudia Brücken (of German 80s synthpop band Propaganda) on ‘Say When’. Propaganda, I’ve just gone off to investigate on YouTube, and Claudia’s vocals are not what I’d thought would work with Jack Adaptor’s sound, given Propaganda’s sound. She sounds less harsh and the vocals fit the song like a glove.
‘Glue Man’ has me heading back off to chill out land, like the opener. I have trouble trying to describe the sound of both tracks, other than they are both uniquely Jack Adaptor!
For me, one of the signs of a good artist, is taking type of sound that I’m really not that into and using it in a way that changes my mind. Here the 70s influenced funk sounds of ‘Navigating The Amazon’ manage to do that.
‘Pionus’, a slow and sad track, that my mind says would be how musically the Cocteau Twins would sound without their distinctive chorus effects. The guitar has a deeply reflective feel, and I imagine I’m a slowly floating down a river.
I’m half expecting a vocoded Sexy Boy! to jump out of the next track when I hear familiar sounding synth kicking off the ‘The Road To Bali’. However, this is Jack Adaptor not Air, and this not a rip off, or homage to Air. Before telling the tale of not managing to be with the girl he wants.
What follows sounds like the ballad of a drag queen’s lost love on ‘Queen of the Universe’ before heading out onto the stage. I could have this completely wrong, but that’s what I’ve taken from the lyrics: The butterflies have flown into another soul. Behind the scenes of the loveless, putting on my mascara as I fill my role. I’m going on…
The tone changes to a more upbeat sounding ‘Oppenheimer in Manhattan’, though given Oppenheimer being the director of the institute that developed the Manhattan project. When you know this, the the children’s backing vocals on the chorus, give the song an unnerving quality at what feels like the the normalised outlook of the destructive nature of the project, though from the lyrics, this sounds exactly the point. Oppenheimer himself was opposed to the development of the hydrogen bomb.
A riff on a piano in an empty village hall, sets off the final track ‘I Wish It Could Be Better’. It appears to be a lament on a current love. As it goes on a nicely understated, very quiet, noisey, perhaps shoegazey guitar that slowly swells without ever intruding.
These days I need to music to take me somewhere, even if I’ve been there before, as long as it does it in it’s own way, that’s good. Spoiler Versions takes me somewhere I didn’t know I wanted to go, but am glad it did. This is perfect music for chilling out. This album tells me I’ve been missing out on Jack Adaptor, so time to look at filling in the back catalogue.