It’s Psychedelic Baby presents: Shadow Brother – Keep Going premiere
Jeff and I started playing together in college and added Jake into the fold not long after. We’ve been playing and recording together ever since. Even when we explored other projects and pursuits we always continued to collaborate on a number of recording projects. After Jeff’s move back home to New Orleans, and Jake’s move to NYC a few years later we had to find a way to keep working together and Shadow Brother evolved out of this long distance collaboration.
During this time period Toby’s focus shifted toward recording and producing other artists. The brother’s studio, High/Low Recording, started in 2009, quickly became a creative hub for tons of Memphis artists and musicians as well as serving as an incubator for their own projects. Over the course of its short life span High/Low has been home to a who’s who of the Memphis music scene; with Toby engineering and/or producing releases by Dave Shouse (The Grifters), Dead Soldiers, Rob Jungklas, and Snowglobe, as well as national acts such as The Echo-Friendly, Dirty Fences, La Panther Happens, and Natural Child.
About the album
Before the record started I went thru some pretty significant changes in my life and out of that chaotic period a batch of new songs emerged. I had to not only face the anger and sadness I felt from this deep, personal betrayal, but to openly examine my own mistakes and anxieties so that I could move past it and find the light on the other side. This couldn’t be a “finger pointing” record. I had to look in the mirror, too. I needed to accept as much blame as I was placing on the other person in order to balance the raw, harshness of those other emotions. Musically, I wanted to make the songs sound bright and sonically inviting to counterbalance the heavy nature of the lyrics. I felt so strongly about these new tunes that I really didn’t want to haphazardly send the guys any unfinished ideas but I also didn’t want to bombard them with fully realized songs. I wanted them to have a blank canvas to start from. I just wasn’t sure how to accomplish those two seemingly opposing ideas.
– Jake Vest
