JXMAS is the long-secret alias of Jonathon Newby, founding member and former frontman of Indiana’s Brazil. After leaving the band in 2007, Newby retreated to his primitive, bare-bones home studio in rural Indiana, effectively leaving all semblance of the music industry behind. Despite having toured the world and recorded with some of the most sought-after producers of the time, Newby spent almost a decade only occasionally writing and recording personal project in an unused bedroom, burning the masters to a CD-r to file away in an old filing cabinet. “For a long time, I thought I was burnt out and done with music. But it turns out, I was just burned out on the hustle and the grind of touring. No ill feelings against anyone, my head just couldn’t handle it after eight years on the road. I needed time away to reacquaint myself with my own creative process.” Slowly picking up where “The Philosophy of Velocity” left off, Newby took the shimmery yet shadowy whimsy of the Brazil swansong era and recalibrated it into something more succinct - something more readily digestible but still drawing from the corner of his psyche that housed the same dark humor and rich metaphorical visuals that fed “Philosophy.” “I started writing more in a quirky pop vein toward the tail end of my time in Brazil. Songs that had the layered complexity I was used to writing in Brazil, but not as hugely bombastic and guitar-driven. I was in a quirkier inner world. A world with more pianos and clarinets and space echo. An Elizabeth-Frazier-meets-J-Spaceman-meets-Neil-Gaiman kind of headspace.” Drawing from his production experience with Dave Fridmann, JXMAS employed the same kitchen-sink approach to recording in the studio, inventively capturing each song with a wide range of often happily accidental techniques to produce his debut release “Dirigibles.” “I went out of my way to catch what I heard in my head. At least half of the songs were re-written and re-recorded upward of three times, in a living room, in a garage, in a loft, over the course of several years. Some of them were sketches meant to be Brazil songs on a never-realized 4th record.” The new album features 8 tracks of what some might call baroque pop or neo-psychedelia, drawing on influences that include the lush, saturated sound palettes of Spiritualized and Tame Impala, the soaring alto vocals and lyricism of Blur, and the phantasmagorical space-face imagery of Ziggy Stardust Bowie. The lyrics are sweetly saccharine, yet also hint strongly at themes of alienation and the darker edges of the brainpan. “Dirigibles” will be released December 5, 2016.