I never figured out what kind of issues/damages static electricity imposes on vinyl record playback. My local vinyl 'therapist' suggested I get the newest anti-static cleaning brush (https://www.analogplanet.com/content...on-fiber-brush). He gave me a nice discount, so the next thing you know I took it home. Now using it and wondering if it's placebo or not, but I think I hear less clicks and pops after using it.

My dealer said that it's important to hold the brush by its metal parts in the middle of the handle. Holding it that way while gently brushing the LP is supposed to help discharge pent up static from the record surface. This static could allegedly cause some noise during playback. I was never able to really understand whether that's a real or an imaginary phenomenon, but I now do think that the noise had subsided a bit.

Is this merely my naive expectation bias, or is there really some hard science supporting the AudioQuest anti-static brush claims?