They say the best leaders are the ones that don’t want a leadership role. When you aren’t looking for power and you end up with it, I guess you’re less apt to use it for evil. In some parallel way, BradleeZ shuns the spotlight while possessing the kind of qualities that demand it. He’s a complete mystery, that’s the first hook. He seems to come from a different time and place, not of this world or held to its cultural influence. To me, he’s a lot more like the legend of Pecos Bill than he is a guy living somewhere in Buffalo.
His albums tend to sound like a polka troupe that ate acid with Tim Leary and marched down the Appalachian trail. He’s wildly talented as a multi-instrumentalist but rather than sound like a “band,” it sounds more like the junk drawer inside of a brain. Elements will crop up, bloom then fade to dust without any real adherence to the familiar structures of western music. There’s a debt owed to the 60’s psychedelic folk but BradleeZ’s vision reaches far beyond that.
A few years ago I wrote a full album review and this is what I said about our track of the week: "I’m turning into Tom Verlaine makes a day-dream sound like a nightmare with a wailing tantrum of a refrain. Mixed up with visions of a styrofoam hand being mutilated in a number of gruesome ways, you get the feeling things aren’t going well."
We haven’t heard from BradleeZ since 2019 and our track of the week is even older than that. I consider it a victory that his bandcamp is still online and hold out hope for one day when I see that sweet sweet album release notification email pop up in my inbox.
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