The Brian Jonestown Massacre

The Brian Jonestown Massacre operates as the ceaselessly shifting outlet for the infamous psych-rock artist Anton Newcombe, sustaining countless lineups and stylistic shifts since its emergence in the mid-1990s and establishing itself as a cornerstone of independent music. Standout early efforts such as Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request from 1996 revealed Newcombe's skill at fusing late-1960s psychedelia with layered shoegaze textures, whereas subsequent peaks like the 2015 imaginary film score Musique de Film Imaginé embraced a more introspective and avant-garde direction. The group's greatest public exposure arrived after the 2004 documentary DIG! examined the fraught dynamic between Newcombe and Dandy Warhols frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor. Although participants from both bands faulted the film for its perceived bias, the Brian Jonestown Massacre weathered the resulting scrutiny and entered a notably productive creative stretch across the 2010s. Its initial output of the following decade arrived as Fire Doesn't Grow on Trees in 2022, succeeded swiftly by Your Future Is Your Past in 2023.

Honoring the iconic Rolling Stones guitarist and his role in blending Eastern traditions with Western rock & roll, the Brian Jonestown Massacre originated in San Francisco in 1990. Roughly forty musicians cycled through its roster during the ensuing five years, yet singer and guitarist Anton Newcombe remained the constant center, joined by enduring bassist Matt Hollywood and additional contributors to shape the shoegaze-tinged debut LP Methodrone in 1995. A set of archival tracks titled Spacegirl and Other Favorites appeared on the band's own Tangible imprint in early 1996 and marked the first of four BJM albums issued that year; the next, the exceptional Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request, delivered a complete tribute to the Stones' psychedelic peak. Captured live in the studio, the rawer Take It from the Man! expanded the group's sonic range further, while Thank God for Mental Illness closed the year by spotlighting its country and blues roots.

The BJM resurfaced in 1997 via Give It Back!. Following a move to TVT, the band issued Strung Out in Heaven the year after, though Newcombe's singular habits prevented a lasting partnership with the label. After several intermittent EPs, the group returned in 2001 with Bravery Repetition and Noise through Bomp distribution, then delivered And This Is Our Music in 2003. Even without widespread major-label support, the BJM attained its widest visibility in 2004 through the award-winning documentary DIG!, which traced Newcombe's challenges alongside those of his onetime associate and supposed competitor Courtney Taylor-Taylor of the Dandy Warhols. The We Are the Radio EP surfaced in August 2005. Three years afterward the band refreshed its approach on My Bloody Underground with another roster and touches of shoegaze and noise pop, inaugurating Newcombe's A Records imprint. That noisy experimental thread persisted on 2010's Who Killed Sgt Pepper?, recorded partly in Iceland and Berlin.

By then DIG! had attained cult status, and despite repeated personnel changes since the film's debut the BJM sustained its audience through consistent releases. In 2012 Newcombe reunited with Matt Hollywood to craft Aufheben, which he viewed as his most cinematic work. Revelation, the project's fourteenth album, emerged in 2014 from material developed in Newcombe's Berlin studio between 2012 and 2014. Returning to Aufheben's cinematic themes in 2015, Newcombe assembled Musique de Film Imaginé as a suite of cues for an imaginary film drawn from his admiration for classic French cinema. Later that year a seven-track set of rock-oriented songs appeared under the playful heading Mini Album Thingy Wingy. Remaining highly active, Newcombe and his associates first delivered the expansive psych-shoegaze album Third World Pyramid in October 2016, then followed four months later with Don't Get Lost, their sixteenth LP overall. Something Else, the initial release of two albums in 2018, steered the BJM away from recent experimental tendencies toward the direct rock style of its formative years. The eighteenth album, the self-titled The Brian Jonestown Massacre, appeared in 2019 alongside the standalone single "Forgotten Graves."

Amid the early global pandemic the band stayed largely inactive, issuing only the 2021 single "Before You Forget." A year later Newcombe revealed two completed full-length projects and released Fire Doesn't Grow on Trees in June 2022. Originally planned for several months afterward, the next collection, Your Future Is Your Past, finally appeared in February 2023 as an unexpectedly sturdy set centered on anthems of self-reliance and strength.