A homegrown hero of Philly's tight-knit D.I.Y. scene, Brandon Ayres released numerous digital-only albums of home-recorded lo-fi pop before signing a record deal and issuing his first "proper" album in 2017. Ayres grew up in the middle-class Philadelphia suburb of Drexel Hill and started making music at the age of 11 with his friend Josh Phillips in the duo Rasputin's Secret Police. He became involved in the D.I.Y. scene at age 16 after discovering Philly's experimental Faux Fetus Collective, which, he claimed, "changed my life." Using rudimentary gear, he began to write and record his own lo-fi, loop-based music at home, and in 2007 released the first of a slew of digital-only albums on Bandcamp under the moniker Brandon Can't Dance. His work was eclectic, with short songs (mostly under two minutes) flitting from '90s-style indie rock to melodic, falsetto synth-pop and everything in between, often with a sardonic lyrical bent. Alongside his solo work, he also continued to record with the similarly prolific Rasputin's, which became part of the Faux Fetus Collective. He performed numerous live shows, both solo and with Rasputin's, and over the next decade became a staple of the Philly D.I.Y. circuit, all while holding down a job as a security guard and caring for his infirm grandmother, whom he lived with alongside his mother and sister. Ayres found fame outside the Philly scene largely by association after other artists involved with it started to become better known, among them Alex G, Eskimeaux, and LVL Up. In 2015 he was name-dropped in an interview as a major influence by Alex G, who was himself later hyped by the then-über-hip Frank Ocean. In 2016, Ayres was signed by London's Lucky Number label, which reissued a selection of tracks from his LXVE II album as the LXVE EP. His debut physical release followed, the full-length album Graveyard of Good Times. The single "Smoke and Drive Around" was accompanied by a music video of Ayres doing exactly that. To promote the album, he embarked on a U.S. tour with Alex G and LVL Up. ~ John D. Buchanan