The Jack

Anthony Reynolds assembled Jack upon turning 19 alongside Cardiff native Matthew Scott on guitar, the pair united by an affinity for Nick Cave’s bleak humour and the drink-raddled prose of Charles Bukowski. March 1995 saw the lineup completed when Richard Adderley joined on guitar, Patrick Pulzer on drums, Colin Williams on bass and George Wright on keyboards, enabling the group’s first London performance and an immediate signing to Too Pure Records. Their initial outing, the limited-edition single “Kid Stardust,” earned Melody Maker’s single-of-the-week accolade and was succeeded by Pioneer Soundtracks, whose bohemian atmosphere was heightened by the contributions of ex-Scott Walker producer Peter Walsh and the string arrangements supplied by cellist Audrey Morse, the band’s seventh member. Issued during the moment when the cabaret-noir aesthetic associated with Cave—almost parodied on “I Didn’t Mean It, Marie”—Walker, Jacques Brel and the Tindersticks dominated attention, the record nevertheless allowed Reynolds to push the black-clad moodiness further, declaring, “I don’t believe in happiness, do you?” He pursued that darkness more completely through Jacques, portrayed as Jack’s “older, slightly eccentric brother,” a side project with fellow Brel-obsessive Momus that yielded 1997’s How To Make Love Volume 1. The parent group’s aesthetic reached its fullest expression on 1998’s The Jazz Age, a lush romantic masterpiece whose high point arrived with the epic ballad “Nico’s Children.”

Reynolds subsequently completed two additional albums under the Jack/Jacques banner, To Stars (2000) and The End Of The Way It’s Always Been (2002), after which both projects were dissolved so he could pursue solo endeavours. His first release under the Anthony name, Neu York, appeared in 2004, and he has also issued volumes of his poetry.