Walt McClements - On a Painted Ocean

04/04/25

Stillness can imply either tranquility or stagnation. Walt McClements grappled with these opposing forces in the years it took to realize On a Painted Ocean: a suite of searching accordion and pipe organ-led pieces that travel a steady course, swelling and expanding with a tide of tender emotion. The composer and multi-instrumentalist takes the title of his second album from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous epic The Rime of the AncientMariner and its depiction of a boat that’s stalled at sea—As idle as a painted ship/ Upon a painted ocean. It’s an impression that mirrors both the process and the product of Mc Clements’s Western Vinyl release, from the gentle unfurling of a raw reed tone on opener “A Painted Ship” to the gritty ebb and flow of effects-laden drone on “Washed Up,” and the closing flutter and signal interference that noisily builds toward triumphant euphoria on“Clattering.”