Jim E. Brown
By Kit Macdonald
Jim E. Brown is a deeply enigmatic and mysterious artist who claims to be an "obese 19-year-old alcoholic born on in Manchester on September 10, 2001, just one day before the 9/11". A quick perusal of some of his track and album/EP titles should provide a further nudge on the sort of mind we're dealing with here: Someone Left 4 Chicken Fillets In Marie Louise Gardens, I'm An Obese Alcoholic, I Don't Want A Boneless Woman, Help! I've Swallowed A Button Battery and People Need To Stop Feeding The Rats In Fog Lane Park.
His tracks feel like chaotic radio broadcasts, with snippets of spoken word, warped samples, cheap keyboard melodies and distorted beats colliding in quick, unpredictable bursts. The result sits somewhere between experimental pop, sound collage and internet-age outsider music. The project largely exists online, so live shows are a rarity: get along and see a truly curious personality in full flow.