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From The Desk Of Brother JT: “A Field In England”

For a good stretch during the late ’80s/early ’90s, the John Terlesky-fronted, garage-rocking Original Sins were poised to be one of indie rock’s next big things. Despite a string of excellent LPs, that never happened for the pride of Bethlehem, Pa., who disbanded in 1999. Prior to the breakup, Terlesky started releasing more experimental records as Brother JT, and they, too, have been stellar. JT keeps his winning streak alive with the new Tornado Juice (Thrill Jockey), produced by Ray Ketchem (Luna, Okkervil River), who also manned the boards for 1996 Original Sins classic Bethlehem. The good Brother will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week, tornado juice not included.

JT: “Warning: This film contains flashing images and stroboscopic sequences” read the disclaimer at the beginning of A Field In England. I smiled inwardly and thought, “This is my kind of flick.” There’s something about skillfully employed avant-garde editing that pushes several buttons in the old pleasure-center control room for me.

The film opens on what appear to be roadies for Hawkwind circa 1974 decked out as bedraggled British soldiers from the 1600s who find themselves a hedgerow too far in this grimly engaging, B&W yarn.

Separated from a battle, our heroes discover sustenance in the titular field by means of the endless supply of, uh, mushrooms there. Needless to say, they are not your average, garden variety strain. In but the tapping of a tinker’s mallet, the bleary lads are pulling a rogue wizard out of the ground with a rope (when not posing eerily for imaginary symbolist paintings).

The wizard in question, O’Neil, charges the milquetoast of the group, Whitehead, with finding a “treasure” in the field; the latter’s slow-motion, spell-bound emergence from O’Neil’s tent is a peak of high weirdness not usually scaled these days. A lot of digging, billowing black suns and copious fungus munching follows, culminating in Whitehead’s frantic vision quest, a tour de force of witchy, seizure-inducing edits that nicely conjures the spirit of the psychedelic experience on a truly visceral level. I give it four gnarly stems up.