Jakko M. Jakszyk - The Bruised Romantic Glee Club
Jakko M. Jakszyk
The Bruised Romantic Glee Club
2006 Iceni/Toma
Jakko is one of the few professional musicians I have actually had the benefit of trading emails with (others including Deborah Holland and Iain Ballamy), and he is a polite, soft-spoken fellow with a quite normal, grounded demeanor.
The normalcy stops when you peruse his musical output. The guy gets around. He did session work with pop bands like Swing Out Sister, Level 42, and the late Jermaine Stewart, but also worked with ex-Bruford keyboardist Dave Stewart, all of the members of Japan save for David Sylvian, and fronted both the wildly underappreciated ethnic jazz-pop Dizrythmia and the 21st Century Schitzoid Band (a collection of otherwise former King Crimson members playing older KC material, with Jakko playing the role of both guitarist and vocalist. That, as you could imagine, is no casual feat).
This double album veers between his more commercial side (rooted in a certain kind of 80s arty new wave tradition) and the more progressive and experimental. It is an album that requires multiple passes before it starts to really gather steam. That said, it improves with each subsequent exposure, and may be one of my favorite albums of the year (and its only March as I write this).
The first track is the title cut, an anthemic opening volley, followed by a short (1:15) instrumental segue based on a theme by Holst, oddly called Variations on a Theme by Holst. This in turn is used as the intro section to the full blown art-rock instrumental madness that is Catley's Ashes. Fans of King Crimson and Porcupine Tree will find a lot here to enjoy, as it uses members from both those bands to play essentially a sprawling but adventurous six minutes of playing.
The album shifts gears once more to a pair of more accessible cuts starting with Highgate Hill, a pensive bit of daydreaming songcraft, and the more harder edged No One Left to Lie To, which immediately calls to mind the bass and horn powered vamps of Mick Karn circa his Tooth Mother album, as well as a more melodic Porcupine Tree. Forgiving is a stunningly beautiful elegy that floats like ether and makes excellent use of Robert Fripp's soundscape guitarism as well as acoustic and fretless electric basswork weaving around the layers of percussion and synths.
Then we hit another instrumental interlude, this time four minutes of almost ECM style chamber jazz called The Things We Throw Away, that is at essence just piano, acoustic guitar and strings. This mood is follows into the vocals and piano on the jazzy but melancholic pop of Doxy, Dali and Duchamp. The last two tracks on disc one also pair up well, with the discordant yet brooding Srebrenica leading into the haunting closer When We Go Home.
Disc 2 is a collection of covers, with a twist. The twist is that the song selection is by often somewhat obscure bands (i.e. Henry Cow, Soft Machine), and either lesser known cuts by King Crimson (Islands) or radically tweaked cuts by King Crimson (the tabla flavored Pictures of an Indian City). It is one of the best collection of covers in recent memory, both for the selection of material and in the radical measures taken with said material.
In the major name dropping section, Jakko makes use of an army of top players who he has worked with in the past, and makes their contributions fit into a larger context tastefully and without a hint of pretention. Let's take a partial role call:
Robert Fripp (King Crimson, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Blondie, David Sylvian)
Mel Collins (King Crimson, Tears For Fears, Bryan Ferry, Roger Waters)
Mark King (Level 42)
Danny Thompson (Dizrhythmia, Nick Drake, Kate Bush, Talk Talk)
Dave Stewart (Bruford, Robbie Williams)
Ian Wallace (King Crimson, Bob Dylan, The Eagles)
John Giblin (Simple Minds, Brand X, Annie Lennox)
Of particular note is Jakko's regular drummer for years, Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree, Level 42, Incognito) who seems to have a perfect rapport with the material, and anchors it as only he can. Frankly this may be his best recorded work since his long out of print solo album.
Like I said, the guy gets around.
The Bruised Romantic Glee Club
2006 Iceni/Toma
Jakko is one of the few professional musicians I have actually had the benefit of trading emails with (others including Deborah Holland and Iain Ballamy), and he is a polite, soft-spoken fellow with a quite normal, grounded demeanor.
The normalcy stops when you peruse his musical output. The guy gets around. He did session work with pop bands like Swing Out Sister, Level 42, and the late Jermaine Stewart, but also worked with ex-Bruford keyboardist Dave Stewart, all of the members of Japan save for David Sylvian, and fronted both the wildly underappreciated ethnic jazz-pop Dizrythmia and the 21st Century Schitzoid Band (a collection of otherwise former King Crimson members playing older KC material, with Jakko playing the role of both guitarist and vocalist. That, as you could imagine, is no casual feat).
This double album veers between his more commercial side (rooted in a certain kind of 80s arty new wave tradition) and the more progressive and experimental. It is an album that requires multiple passes before it starts to really gather steam. That said, it improves with each subsequent exposure, and may be one of my favorite albums of the year (and its only March as I write this).
The first track is the title cut, an anthemic opening volley, followed by a short (1:15) instrumental segue based on a theme by Holst, oddly called Variations on a Theme by Holst. This in turn is used as the intro section to the full blown art-rock instrumental madness that is Catley's Ashes. Fans of King Crimson and Porcupine Tree will find a lot here to enjoy, as it uses members from both those bands to play essentially a sprawling but adventurous six minutes of playing.
The album shifts gears once more to a pair of more accessible cuts starting with Highgate Hill, a pensive bit of daydreaming songcraft, and the more harder edged No One Left to Lie To, which immediately calls to mind the bass and horn powered vamps of Mick Karn circa his Tooth Mother album, as well as a more melodic Porcupine Tree. Forgiving is a stunningly beautiful elegy that floats like ether and makes excellent use of Robert Fripp's soundscape guitarism as well as acoustic and fretless electric basswork weaving around the layers of percussion and synths.
Then we hit another instrumental interlude, this time four minutes of almost ECM style chamber jazz called The Things We Throw Away, that is at essence just piano, acoustic guitar and strings. This mood is follows into the vocals and piano on the jazzy but melancholic pop of Doxy, Dali and Duchamp. The last two tracks on disc one also pair up well, with the discordant yet brooding Srebrenica leading into the haunting closer When We Go Home.
Disc 2 is a collection of covers, with a twist. The twist is that the song selection is by often somewhat obscure bands (i.e. Henry Cow, Soft Machine), and either lesser known cuts by King Crimson (Islands) or radically tweaked cuts by King Crimson (the tabla flavored Pictures of an Indian City). It is one of the best collection of covers in recent memory, both for the selection of material and in the radical measures taken with said material.
In the major name dropping section, Jakko makes use of an army of top players who he has worked with in the past, and makes their contributions fit into a larger context tastefully and without a hint of pretention. Let's take a partial role call:
Robert Fripp (King Crimson, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Blondie, David Sylvian)
Mel Collins (King Crimson, Tears For Fears, Bryan Ferry, Roger Waters)
Mark King (Level 42)
Danny Thompson (Dizrhythmia, Nick Drake, Kate Bush, Talk Talk)
Dave Stewart (Bruford, Robbie Williams)
Ian Wallace (King Crimson, Bob Dylan, The Eagles)
John Giblin (Simple Minds, Brand X, Annie Lennox)
Of particular note is Jakko's regular drummer for years, Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree, Level 42, Incognito) who seems to have a perfect rapport with the material, and anchors it as only he can. Frankly this may be his best recorded work since his long out of print solo album.
Like I said, the guy gets around.
