Brainstory are based in Los Angeles, but originally hail from Rialto, California. There, brothers Kevin and Tony Martin played music in the same way they approached skateboarding and punk rock: as something unpolished, something you experience together and keep entirely under your own control. Later, Eric Hagstrom joined them, driven by a shared love of jazz. What began as a trio that spoke the language of improvisation gradually evolved into a band that managed to absorb the lessons of jazz without being bound by its conventions. The album *Money Jungle* – the legendary 1962 collaboration between Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Max Roach – was a crucial influence. To them, this jazz sounded like the same rebellious energy that had so appealed to them in punk. It proved that improvisation can be confrontational, physical and liberating. The foundations of Brainstory were laid in the interplay between formal jazz training and hard graft on the local club circuit. Their band was further strengthened by countless hours on the road and the recording of various studio albums, released via the New York-based label Big Crown Records, under the guidance of producer and label boss Leon Michels.

Their early records were primarily the work of a young band still learning how to translate their live energy into a studio recording. Their latest EP, *Shoebox Days*, marks a new level of independence and a spirit of discovery; it is a record of growth and a farewell to an important chapter in the band’s life.

The record is composed of old fragments recorded in their regular – and now former – recording studio, the Shoebox, but has been completed with a fresh perspective. The cramped space, the piles of equipment and the years of experimentation in their old studio have become memories. Brainstory have left the space behind, but they’ve taken the music with them.