Jason The Dream

By Lizz Kannenberg in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 28, 2008 6:38PM

Jason Collett, man … what a voice. It’s enthralling and hopeful, weary and possessed of a devil-may-care drawl that does everything to emphasize his captivating, unassumingly haunting songs. That the guy can be so removed from what he does with main outlet Broken Social Scene on his solo recordings and still be at the absolute top of this secondary, electro-folk-pop genre is so exciting for a music fan to see (hear?). Chicagoist had the good fortune to catch him last winter at the Double Door as he toured on the excellent Idols of Exile, which yielded one of our favorite tracks of 2006 in “Hangover Days.”

Collett's latest offering, Here’s To Being Here, sees the man letting his inner diva out to play a bit. Glimpses of 50’s pop and 70’s disco are all over his weatherbeaten, gritty songwriting - it’s as if Dylan got down to the Bee Gees when he thought no one was looking. As Quick, Before It Melts so aptly noted, “Jason Collett is like a stealth bomber. He flies into the airspace of your brain without you even being aware of his presence and drops a precious bomb into your cerebral cortex…Resistance is futile; surrender and let yourself go.”

Jason Collett plays Schubas tomorrow (10:00 p.m., 21+) and Sunday (8:00 p.m., 18+) , $15