8 Tracks is an intergenerational collaboration uniting Danish-based composer Jack Kilburn with his Birmingham-born father Mark, an award-winning poet and published author. Jack K crafts an off-kilter, cinematic soundtrack to bring his father’s written words to life. “We recorded my dad’s poems first and I composed and recorded the music afterwards,” Jack says. “I’ve lived in Denmark for most of my life and Dad lives in Worcester. We’ve been apart for the most of my life and had sparse communication. Making this album – entering a creative room together – was a special thing and the project became a bonding process between father and son, getting to know each other on a different level.”
“Welcome to the New World” opens the release with a title-touting salutation. Spoken-word introspection and hypnotic guitars meld with subdued rhythms for an absorbing atmospheric intrigue. “Look at the drone storm darkening the skies,” ominous lyricism lets out, ruminating on a post-truth society with rampant technological anxiety and “narcissists everywhere you go” lament. Piano adds beautifully to the solemn soundscape, showing the act’s strong songwriting prowess right away. Ensuing track “Ode to Jazz” moves past the modern tumult into a sense of veneration, for music and art especially. Miles Davis references and vivid descriptions of jazzy entrancement linger within smoky brass and mellow keys, once again showing no shortage of atmosphere and personality.
The album consistently engages in its sophisticated songcraft, parts poetic and parts melodically consuming. “Spring” feels like an antidote to get through winter’s harshness, referencing “nature’s kiss” and its navigation through pipes, eaves, and other ice-ridden structures — viusalizing the changing of seasons and its representation of transformation, both for oneself and their surroundings. There’s a strongly poetic pull across the record’s lyricism and plain-spoken vocal delivery.
Another highlight, “A Teabox, a Medal, a Bullet and a Bone” pairs childhood reminiscing of an unsettling experience, regarding Mark’s mother and her overbearing father, tracing trauma and generational impacts — through both the anecdote and the box’s containment of “ghosts and sins”; the haunting wordless vocal elements add gorgeously. Then arrives album finale “The Reason Why I Like Cooking For You,” an optimistic glimpse of hope following personal tumult and ruminations of a merciful God, and the extent of that mercy. 8 Tracks is a wholly compelling, slice-of-life success from Jack K and his father Mark.
8 Tracks releases on March 13th.
