Feelings by Jake Henry

FEELINGS marks Jake Henry’s long-awaited return as a leader, more than a decade after his debut with Sweet Talk Glitterbomb. This album is a deeply personal exploration of the intricate harmonic language and angular counterpoint Henry developed during his formative years as a guitarist. Drawing on the frenetic energy of math rock, raw intensity of metal, and chaotic textures of noise, Henry recontextualizes common song form into a bold, genre-defying soundscape.

The quartet—featuring Brian Krock (Big Heart Machine, Liddle) on saxophone, Aaron Quinn (Sunchoke, Wadada Leo Smith) on guitar, and Nathan Ellman-Bell (Brass Against) on drums—navigates Henry’s intricate angular compositions with precision and abandon, creating a sound that is both cerebral and visceral. Formed in the post COVID quarantine summer of 2020, the band began meeting weekly to rehearse Henry’s music outdoors, under a bridge in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. At a time of global uncertainty, the group dedicated themselves to forging a high intensity sound with a focused compositional approach as a salve to the instability of the world. Recorded in June 2021 at Palace II, engineer Nathaniel Morgan's prolific pandemic-era warehouse studio squat, FEELINGS documents the group’s necessary artistic expression and stands as a testament to Henry’s commitment to pushing boundaries and redefining the possibilities of contemporary music.