Death, Love & Broken Records and Brazil recently announced pre-order’s for the band’s The Philosophy of Velocity, and today is the final day to support that campaign. The album was Brazil’s 2006 dystopian-victorian rock opera, an album that mysteriously disappeared for 18 years, now reclaimed by the band themselves. Hear this cult classic the way it was meant to be heard by pre-ordering it here. The general release of the vinyl to the public is November 7.

Muncie, Indiana’s Brazil was a post-hardcore influenced six-piece band, formed in 2000 by brothers Jonathon and Nicholas Newby. Originally called London, they later adopted the name Brazil after the 1985 Terry Gilliam film.

In 2002, the band signed with Fearless Records and released the Dasein EP, followed by the acclaimed 2004 debut full-length, A Hostage and the Meaning of Life, a release, that the band supported with months of touring alongside Coheed and Cambria, Sparta, mewithoutYou, Minus the Bear, and others.

Never content to repeat themselves, the band later joined Immortal Records to release The Philosophy of Velocity in 2006. Co-produced by Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Mogwai, Thursday), the record wove surreal short stories and absurdist vignettes into walls of dense, layered sound, tempered by dark humor and theatrical camp.

The album built a labyrinth of sound woven together with surreal short stories and themes of fractured identity, entropy, and decay and was lauded by the music press. Unfortunately, the momentum was short-lived. Just a year later, Immortal Records collapsed, the album went out of print, and the original masters vanished into industry limbo. Brazil officially disbanded in 2008, leaving behind a short but captivating catalog and a legacy as one of the Midwest’s most visionary bands.

For nearly two decades, The Philosophy of Velocity existed only in the hands of those who had managed to buy it before its disappearance, becoming a cult artifact among fans and traded in rare CD exchanges.

However, in early 2025, after years of searching, Brazil recovered and assumed ownership of the long-lost original sessions of The Philosophy of Velocity. For the first time in 18 years, the album will return, remastered and pressed on colored vinyl in a limited-edition release.

The new digital edition will feature three additional outtakes from the 2006 Tarbox sessions, restoring a record that captured the band at the height of its creative audacity and offering both longtime fans and new listeners the chance to hear it as it was always meant to be experienced.

Celebrate the vinyl release with a performance by the band and a screening of the Terry Gilliam film “Brazil” if you’re in Indianapolis on November 2.

Photo courtesy of Nico Routzen.