BROTHER JT (ex-Original Sins)
THE SPLIT SIGNALS
The Brother JT saga (proper) begins in the early '90s. The Brother had been doing a bunch of solo recording that he felt were outside the scope of the Original Sins. One night he ended up on a Siltbreeze tour that alighted at the rural homestead of bald, music fatty, Byron Coley. Chemicals were in the air, and when JT played him some tapes, the results were released as the first Brother JT album, Descent,on Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggars' Twisted Village label. This led to an array of other JT projects, many of which paralleled the Sins' trajectory, until he decided to pursue the Brother JT psych-path more exclusively. Results appeared on such labels as Drunken Fish, Siltbreeze and Drag City, and man, they were great. Now he has made his debut on Thrill Jockey, and it is, perhaps, his most outstanding effort yet.
The Svelteness of Boogietude is a typical of JT's output in certain ways — rockers mixed with ballads, all of them crafted with causal elegance — but there are new elements here as well. In particular, there's an attention to the legacy of later-period T. Rex, which results in tunes that kick total ass. Coley, having seen Bolan play during his Zinc Alloy/Zip Gun Boogie period, went so far as to claim that "JT's approach to this stuff equals that of the Master — huge riff-based anthems that balance glam dynamics with mystical history on the head of a pin." JT also manages to pull of ballads that can remind one of Beat Happening (“Gliding”) or what it might be like to hear Warren Zevon covering the Velvets (“Somebody Down There”), a lost track by the Stalk Forrest Group (“Muffintop”) or even a Kevin Ayers/Scott Walker move so bold you'll shiver (“I Still Like Cassettes”).
It's inconceivable that anyone who truly digs rock music will not be sucked deeply into the vortex of Boogietude. We can only pray that you will hear it, to experience the massive wonders of he who is Brother JT. From his remote headquarters in Central PA, the Brother has let another massive arrow fly. Don't not get in its way.
46 Third Avenue (at Atlantic), Brooklyn, U.S.A.
Doors at 9PM. No cover. 21+ with ID.
