Brother JT

Photo: April Bartholomew

At this point, the word psych means pretty much anything you want it to mean. It encapsulates everything from shambling bands traveling up their own asses to acts more convincingly tuned in to the very frequency of the vibrating cosmos itself. Needless to say, pursuing the edges of the rapidly expanding universe can lead you to extreme or even outright madness, but Philly’s psychedelic underdog Brother JT has bravely decided to follow that path all the same over ten albums.

Given its alternately mind-expanding and eyebrow-raising aims, Brother JT’s most recent platter, Jelly Roll Gospel (Drag City), is predictably pretty strange, like a shaky fifth-generation black-and-white VHS bootleg pulled from a time capsule. Only 500 copies were pressed on vinyl. Still, it’s not without its many contact-high charms—all of which draw you into soul-Brother John Terlesky’s fuzzed-out and fitfully funky headspace to rattle along with the many ideas and fried neurons already jammed in there.

There are plenty of blues-tinted garage-scuzz hooks, too, and a few big ones at that. “What You Make of It” takes 13th Floor Elevators to Jamaica, while “Way Out” reanimates Curtis Mayfield’s “Freddie’s Dead” with a heavy dose of LSD. But these pop moments seem almost secondary to what Terlesky and the band are going for. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the trip: Live, Brother JT strives for an inclusive vibe that’s part summer cookout jam, part dimly lit basement blowout, and part after-hours twist-and-shout party in the psych ward. Oh, we mean “psych” in the traditional sense there. Come to think of it, Brother JT does, too.

• More Music articles