Artist and composer Jim Fairchild and his band Small Isles will release Everything on Memory EP next week by Modern Recordings/BMG. Spending his entire adult life in the beloved bands Grandaddy and Modest Mouse, Fairchild stepped away from Modest Mouse in 2021. Sonically aligned with the vastness. The artist states: “Everything on Memory was written as the imagined score to a movie I dreamt about in which Donald and Steven Glover wrote a script in response to Modest Mouse’s ‘Third Planet’ that Christopher Nolan directed.”

Seeking to interrogate the process of constructing sounds, Fairchild describes his goal of making Small Isles an arena rock band without the rock and no imposed messaging: “I think people are ready for more implication than explanation. I have plenty to say. I just want to do it without words for a while. To make music that takes all I’ve learned about making and performing songs and removes the narrative from it.”

Small Isles could nestle as comfortably in a 400-person capacity club as it could in an old, historic concert hall. It is music that seeks to sharpen the senses, to feel time differently. Having performed their first show this November, fans can expect exciting news to some in 2024.

Photo Credit: Brett Padelford