THE DEAD BROTHERS –
Things are rarely what they seem (liner notes preview)
By M.A. Littler

When the fog lifts and the wind shifts things are rarely what they seem.
Was it love or was it murder?
It’s hard to say in this light.
Is she fifteen or is she twenty?
Who knows past midnight?
The truth hides in deep and murky waters.
Which leads us to the question at hand:
Who are the Dead Brothers?
A surrealist chanson outfit, penny arcade singers from Bismarck, North Dakota, carny attractions at PT
Barnum’s or rejects from Hades?
Perhaps taking a closer look at their music will shed some light on this investigation.
Bluegrass clashes with Macedonian funeral marches, Jimmy Rogers goes line dancing with Bauhaus and
Swiss hillbilly folk music becomes the soundtrack to a hardboiled film noir.
Confused?
Good!
The Dead Brothers know a secret is far more seductive than the truth…and they never let the truth get in
the way of a good yarn.
Which brings us to the present:
Legend has it that The Brothers recently gathered in a remote Swiss mountain village, and fueled by
wicked wine and strong spirits, cut a disk that merges the worlds of Wagner, Dashielle Hammet and
George Brassens.
It will not take long for the analysts to enter the scene and ask:
Is it Jazz?
Is it blues?
Is it avant-garde folk?
Or is it simply Rock ‘n’ Roll?
The answer is:
YES!
It’s all of that tightly wrapped into an exotic little package.

For the Dead Brothers nothing is sacred, everything is profane…or is nothing profane and everything
sacred – they are masters of ambiguity, they are shape shifters.

So one day when the good Lord sits down to a few glasses of Escorial after a hard day’s work and the
light is just right, you might see The Dead Brothers pulling their pump organ, upright bass, banjo, lap
steel guitar and singing saw down the main drag of your home town, and sitting down at a Mahogoni
bar at the Marquis de Sade’s, holding up glasses of Escorial and toasting toward heaven before hitting
the stage and seducing you into a world of love, pain and magic. .

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