Though only officially formed in 2015, the tangled roots of Columbus, Ohio based Inbokeh, are buried in childhood friendships, collaborations, years of writing, touring, and performing, and a deep-seated, relentless need to find an outlet for the creative energy the members share. When drummer Cody Smith, asked bassist and vocalist Jonathan Burgess to work with him on songs Smith was in the process of writing, it quickly became clear that there was room for further collaboration, and the potential for an entirely new project to be born. Though both had been writing and performing in a number of bands and solo projects over the last few years, they found that they fed off of the enthusiasm, ideas, and sounds that each other provided, and that their collaboration was greater than the sum of it’s parts. Though their initial work as a duo proved fruitful, it wasn’t until the addition of guitarist Danial Stafford, a longtime friend, and former bandmate to both Burgess and Smith, that the project that would become Inbokeh began to find it’s footing, and hone in on its signature style and sound.
With all three members contributing to the writing, what started as a handful of ideas and quick sketches soon grew to a stable of fleshed out, and fully realized songs, and Inbokeh entered the studio, and began work on their Debut EP. Bolstered by engineer Eric Cronstein at Oranjudio, the largely self-produced EP is replete with droning, feedback laden guitar fuzz reminiscent of 90’s post-grunge, a formidable, and heavy handed rhythm section, and soaring vocal melodies that resonate with urgent and desperate emotion. The six songs that make up their debut self titled EP are as musically dense, as they are lyrically sparse with Burgess’s vocal prowess deployed as both a luminous organic, and dreamy instrument, as well as a mechanism for delivering the exiguous, and austere lyrics, that seem to hint at something unsaid lying just below the surface.