BandCamp Artist – J.J. Fats

In pursuit of the “next big thing,” many people will seek out a musician whose sound is often called “indefinable” but can usually be considered “unlistenable.” Few things are worse than the artist who attempts to reinvent the wheel by drawing influences from bop jazz, hip-hop, classic rock, baroque classical compositions, synth klesmer, and post-Watergate funk rock and combines these ingredients into a genre that sounds like shit. I mean, imagine you wanted to make a cake that included the essences of black forest, angel food confetti, coffee cake, and Rice Krispy treats, you’d end up with something inedible and ugly that would make even the most gluttonous child bawl. And still, there would be one culinary daredevil that would validate this shitty cake by deeming it “too futuristic” for the plebes at large. These are the assholes that mess it up for everyone.

Once in a great while, however, you can mix together strawberry shortcake and Amish friendship bread and net something rather tasty. So it is with music, and all creative ventures: when venturing into new territory, you usually wind up falling into a pit of lava but sometimes you hit pay dirt. That’s the case with Justin “J.J. Fats” Asher, who has recently uploaded two single tracks, a theatrical score, and two complete solo albums to his bandcamp site. It’s difficult to pin J.J. Fats down to any one genre, and it wouldn’t be a reach to call him an experimental artist, but he is someone truly experimenting with sound and not the listener’s patience. While other eclectic composers’ work seems to come with an ulterior motive, and exists to challenge the audience into accepting some existential premise or another, J.J. Fats’ work is about the music, about playing with sound and form and creating something new and palatable. Each attempt is not a success, in that regard, but each time you get the impression that he’s testing his own boundaries, not yours.

I know this artist personally and I’ve been a fan of his work for a while—not necessarily in that order—and I wholeheartedly recommend his work to anyone that’s a fan of music—not a rap fan, not a metal head, but a genuine music lover whose mind isn’t closed to specific genres. Because you might think that you don’t like Las Vegas crooners, until you’ve heard J.J. Fats’ Serbian Discos. Check him out, and if you like what you hear, give him some money.