Brutus VIII
ABOUT
Pure Gluttony was the Brutus VIII record that Jackson Katz always had in his head. It is a dark, intense piece of music. Darkwave and Electroclash. Harsh — that goes without saying — but also vulnerable, funny. Katz writes songs about things he fears most, and finds a way to satirize them. On Pure Gluttony, he takes stock of his fears and defamiliarizes them. Puts them behind a strobing synth, the crash of the drums, a vocal pitch-shifted into oblivion.
On his new EP, Do It For the Money out on new label American Death (run by members of Dutch Interior and Untitled Halo), Katz leans into his subconscious and once again satirizes them with a new sense of doom. Covering personal topics from eating disorders, the rise of neo-nazis, to suicidal ideation. In a style he refers to as “a sort of condensed Randy Newman on amphetamines”. Do It For the Money serves as an addendum to his previous record. Packing an even hissier, noisier punch than before. Living somewhere between EBM, Punk, and Baile Funk from Brazil. Almost always keeping you dancing.
Before Do it For the Money, there were a handful of prior releases. Three full lengths — one released when Katz was still functionally a teenager, the other released in 2021. He cut his chops as a touring drummer, most notably for Nick Rattigan’s Current Joys. He lived in Los Angeles, then moved to New York to hone his craft. While collaborating with many New York City music scene friends (fantasy of a broken heart, Model/Actriz, This is Lorelei), he tightened Brutus VIII live performances, becoming an absolutely remarkable presence on stage. Do It For the Money is the distillation of hard work. It captures what is so indelible about Katz’s live set. That feeling both of fear and also being tenderly trolled by someone who views performance and persona as a carefully orchestrated craft.
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