(Bag Lady Records)

Who is this crazy person really?

Juke Baritone is the alias of Canadian-born Australian lad Brett Maverix. Or is Brett Maverix the alias of Juke Baritone? I get the impression Juke could be one of those drifter on-the-run-from-the-law forty-passport-seaman types that Tom Waits likes to sing about. Or even scarier and more poetic, he could be the mutated product of Waits’ imagination. Juke Baritone’s growling songs about love (the JB philosophy: love is all about getting in and out, getting high and getting laid) and the odd jibe at capitalism are dished out energetically by the jazzy Swamp Dogs ensemble. The Mr Baritone show pumps through the veins of this release and you can almost taste the stage show as paces of tempos quicken and each song crescendos, hinting at the drug experience JB openly serenades about. Juke Baritone calls it old world, swampy cabaret growlin’ blues; I call it suspicious.

ILI TULLOCH

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