Brothertiger

John Jagos, a Toledo, Ohio native, launched his career in 2006 by producing upbeat electro under the name Monoteque. While enrolled at Ohio University in 2009 he shifted toward more experimental textures, drawing from Brian Eno’s ambient moodscapes and the pulsing pop of M83, and adopted the Brothertiger alias. After moving to Brooklyn, New York, he issued the chillwave-oriented EPs Apache Feathers and Vision Tunnels, both of which earned notice and led to a deal with Mush Records, the imprint also home to Bibio and Daedelus. His Mush debut, Golden Years, appeared in 2012 and was followed in 2013 by Future Splendors. A run of singles occupied 2014, setting the stage for the independent arrival of his third album, Out of Touch, in 2015. Rather than proceed directly to another full-length, Jagos spent the remainder of the decade on smaller ventures that included a complete cover of Tears for Fears’ Songs from the Big Chair as well as the EPs A Chain of Islands in 2019 and Fundamentals, Vol. 1 in 2020. Paradise Lost, his fourth proper Brothertiger album, surfaced in September 2020. In the ensuing two years he issued three additional installments of the Fundamentals series, later compiled as Fundamentals: The Anthology, and released the singles “Wallow” and “New Life,” which formed his self-titled fifth LP in 2022. His signature sound—warm, ’80s-driven synth pop laced with hypnotic lo-fi ambience—surfaced amid the early-2010s chillwave wave fronted by Toro y Moi and Washed Out; the two Mush albums helped cement his profile before Out of Touch arrived to wider acclaim, and the Fundamentals project continued alongside the 2020 release of Paradise Lost.