The Music and Planet Project

Most of us could use a little more chill beach in our lives. The good news is that rather than dropping a load of cash on renting a place and getting yourself to a shoreline somewhere, you can go there in your mind. No, it’s not drugs I’m talking about; it’s the music of dream-pop artist Jack Sklivas.

From the opening moments of his song Melting Clock, Jack transports us to an imagined oceanside somewhere where our worries feel trivial. The warmth of Jack’s guitar tone melded with the laid back beat and lush bassline that accompany it are enough to set the mood immediately. Following the opening notes, echoey vocals join in the wash of sound, blending right in with the gooey tones of the instruments that have already set the stage for an idyllic mental getaway. By the time the chorus hits, we have been fully transported to this peaceful universe, floating away on gentle waves without a care in the world for whatever awaits us back on land. Jack then builds on the beachy sound in the chorus with higher-register guitar riffs and vocal melodies, lending a new, more expansive angle to the mood. 

Lyrics-wise, Jack uses the track to meditate on the concept of time. Making frequent reference to the famous Dali painting where warped clocks hang in contorted positions, Jack directly calls into question our assumptions around time, its rigid forward movement, and our ability to understand it. “To try and stop your melting clock would be something unheard of” he repeats, making us stop and think about our deeply engrained perceptions of time and our ability to control how we exist within it. We may act in the world under the hard and fast assumption that time is fixed and perfectly precise, but could it be possible to choose to relate to the ticking of the clock differently? To melt down time into something not so exact, and, in doing so, act in a more care-free manner untethered to the exactitude of perfect seconds and minutes?

In both music and lyrics, Jack Sklivas’ Melting Clock embodies another universe where worries melt away and time could be something entirely different than what we so easily perceive it to be. 

Stream Jack Sklivas’ Melting Clock here.