A poetry major/Italian scholar; bandmates scattered about Florida; influences that range from Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell to (jazz drummer/bandleader) Art Blakey and Jimi Hendrix; and a proclivity toward running late in spite of their timely band name. 
  

These are the many diverse elements that make up the thematic indie folk-rock band Clock Hands Strangle. Their detailed, odic, emotional lyrics are coupled with instrumental restraint and a focused band philosophy; the results are compositions that may easily catch upon first listen, but may take many repeated perusals to properly grasp. Let's start with the resident band poet, CHS' Todd Portnowitz.

"Whatever I'm studying tends to end up in the music," Portnowitz explains, "language, philosophy, history, is a part of any substantial creative process, I'd argue, at least as much as lived experience is. For experience to have value at all, you must reflect, and in order to reflect with any consistency, you must read." 
   

In addition to his poetry degree (yes, gentle reader, he really does have one), Portnowitz is now studying Italian, and is accompanying his Romance language studies with a bit of continental music ("I've been listening to Italian singer-songwriter Rino Gaetano lately," he says). So does this mean CHS may be singing in Italian soon?
   

"I've thought of covering a few of Gaetano's songs, but have yet to write a song of my own in Italian," Portnowitz  ponders, "but most of the lyrics on Distaccati came about as a reaction to reading a slew of modern literature, writers like T.S. Eliot, who said that an artist must 'destroy his personality' to create anything substantial. I understand the notion—it’s the same for a scientist, who must completely remove his subjective self from the experiment in order to reduce the amount of bias in the results; but I only agree with it in part. Writing this album was a way to wrestle with that question - how much of yourself should be in art? How much should be pure, removed observation?" 

  

'Removed' would be the literal word for how Distaccati ("Detached" in Italian) was constructed. During the writing of the album, all five band members were living across the state of Florida; two in Melbourne, two in Orlando, and in Gainesville.
   "I'd have most of the music and lyrics prepared before bringing the song to practice, where we’d sort out the mess,"   explains Portnowitz, "the structure in most of these songs is derived from the lyrics. Nick and I work through lead guitar parts, filling in gaps in the song’s structure or shifting whole sections of the song around. Even after putting all of the individual parts together, with Adam and Brian usually crafting their drum and bass parts by ear, the musical and structural ideas would remain somewhat soupy."
  

"Only after playing through a song together multiple times, with each of us editing our parts and objecting to boring or useless spots, would we have something complete. We’re the opposite of a jam band, constantly working to trim the fat. I mean - why write lyrics at all if the music has nothing to do with them? And why demand people’s attention when nothing worthwhile is being said?"
   Well said, indeed. Influence-wise, Portnowitz says there's a significant overlap between the bands that inspire CHS instrumentally and lyrically, as "most of us won't bother to listen to anything with terrible lyrics."
  

"Our most significant influences tend to date further back," he says, "Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Hendrix, Eric Dolphy, Art Blakey. Nick, who plays lead, was raised on classic rock and hair bands."
   

"When we began in Melbourne, we took many of our cues from local greats - a band called The Influence, who taught us that music was about having fun, and, more so, Jason Choi, who taught us that music was about being serious. Jason is still playing in Florida. He was, and is, an impeccable songwriter."

Clock Hands Strangle's own songwriting will be getting exposure via that upcoming album release in June; but you'll have to be diligent in order to catch them on the road, as they're not big on the road work... and when they do tour, they're often late, belaying the peril of their timely band name.
  

"As far as a tour that coincides with Distaccati's album release, it doesn’t look likely," Portnowitz affirms, "we tire very quickly of playing the same songs, even ones we’re proud of, and so we're already working on new material, and thinking about recording three or four new songs before the summer is up. We always end up touring with a set composed wholly of material we’ve yet to record, and which is usually very different from the preceding album; the entire state of Florida, I think, is completely confused at this point. One venue will list us as indie-folk, the next as classic rock. I’m not sure when the next time we’ll hit the road will be; another record may happen first."

And yes, it's true - CHS get awarded the tardy pass on a regular basis.
   "We’re famously late, though not unreasonably so, usually just an hour," Portnowitz chuckles, "probably because we don’t finish breakfast until 2 or 3 p.m. We’re also very optimistic about drive times between cities; if the GPS says it will take five hours, we leave with five hours to spare. Then we make five rest stops and show up six and a half hours later. If we pass a used bookstore or are in the vicinity of a decent museum, forget it."

Here's a video of the band performing 'Desert Music':