Teenage pop sensation Jim E. Brown is an obese alcoholic who suffers from various degenerative conditions.

Fresh off a string of sold-out shows across the world, Manchester's beloved son makes his long awaited return to San Francisco for a special one-off show.

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As a born and bred Mancunian...Brown’s sound understandably draws from Manchester’s post-punk and baggy tradition. Drum machines and synths shimmer like a crap New Order. He wails like the Fall’s Mark E. Smith, if Smith was a shame-ridden depressive. He rhapsodises like John Cooper Clarke, if Clarke was raised on YouTube brain rot.

“Never heard of them,” says Brown.

Sydney Morning Herald -
Robert Moran, MAY 24, 2025

Faux Real is the deranged child of Franco-American brothers Elliott and Virgile Arndt.

In the summer of 2018, they invoked the union of their inner-gene genies and gave birth to faux realism.

The brothers started playing their first shows as a duo with nothing but a couple of microphones, a flute, some handmade costumes, and a weird/incestuous/compelling 30-minute long choreography. With no music online or a single confirmed show on the horizon, they took off on a month-long U.S. tour in March 2019, with high hopes and low expectations.

They ended up performing over 30 times that month, from SXSW in Austin to Los Angeles and New York City, performing anywhere and everywhere the city would allow, from large venues to sweaty nightclubs to street corners, house parties, art galleries, illegal raves, or hijacking existing bills with impromptu slots. The two brothers are quickly becoming notorious for their wild, unhinged, retro-futuristic and avant-garde anti-rock performances, ranging from flute-infused 808 ballads to feverish Stooge-esque self-flagellation, tongue-in-cheek english poetry, faux athletics and improvised quasi-ballet.

Faux Real are also becoming known for their charismatic visual identity despite a willingly limited online presence, and have already been shot by some of today’s preeminent music and fashion photographers.

The project sparked up the interest of Jay Watson (Tame Impala, Pond, Gum) who came to work on Faux Real’s first EP, due the fall of 2019. Faux Real’s debut single “Second Sweat” rips through the many joys of social anxiety and panic attacks at a cruising speed of 162 BPM while surfing on motor synth loops, chichi guitars, and gritty slap bass.