Culture
Exploring That Jungle Aesthetic: A Conversation With John Jagos
By: Emily Votaw
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Sometime during his sophomore year, Ohio University School of Media Arts and Studies alumnus John Jagos crafted a name for the colorful electronic music he was crafting: Brothertiger. Pulled from Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 The Jungle Book and Disney’s 1967 animated musical of the same name, Jagos based the name on an amalgamation of the man-cub protagonist Mowgli and his friend, Shere Khan the tiger.
The name embodies the lush, tropical nature of the music that Jagos has continually crafted over the course of two full length albums and numerous EPs. Playfully referring to it as “jungle aesthetic,” Jagos said that it’s the general feel that he’s been aiming for over the course of almost the past decade under the evocative moniker.
“Visually, it’s very powerful — lush and atmospheric and very earthy,” said Jagos, who cited the cover of his most recent release, 2015’s Out Of Touch, as a great example of the vibe he tries to create with Brothertiger.
Jagos is no longer a college kid experimenting with bright sounds in the confines of a cinderblock room. Now based out of Brooklyn, Jagos has furthered his producing career.
“I’ve been trying to just to kind of establish myself as a producer and an audio engineer here this year,” said Jagos, who opened Parameter Recordings in Green Point, Brooklyn, with one of his friends last April. “We have a nice little studio here, I’m fulfilling my degree, as it were.”
Jagos said that a good portion of the musicians who approach him to work on their recordings come to him because they have heard Brothertiger.
“I’ve been demoing some Brothertiger stuff for the past year, and I’m starting to actually pout some songs together,” said Jagos, who hopes to have an EP out sometime this year.
“Out of Touch had a vibe that was drastically different from everything else that I have done,” said Jagos. “With the next stuff I’m trying to keep going with a more modern electronic music vibe with subtle throwbacks from the ‘80s, while still keeping with that jungle-esque that I like.”
Last year Jagos began keeping a blog detailing the often bizarre and always highly listenable electronic music that he listens to.
“I started the blog just because my listening tendencies have been stranger than they’ve ever been recently,” said Jagos. “I always tend to find really weird stuff that I have never heard of and I tend to really like it.”
Among the first topics Jagos tackled was the Bruton Music Library, a label founded in London in the last ‘70s consisting essentially of only commercial music crafted exclusively for elevators and offices.
Jagos said that fans can look forward to an upcoming cover album of Tears for Fears hit-laden Songs From the Big Chair sometime in the early part of this year.