That spirit of discovery runs through Shoebox Days, Brainstory’s new EP, a concise collection that doubles as a document of growth and a farewell to an important chapter in the band’s history. Much of the material dates back several years, with some originating in 2020. The songs were fragments — grooves, sketches, & ideas that couldn’t yet find their final form. Years later, with Brainstory more assured as musicians, producers & arrangers, returned to those pieces & finished them. The title comes from the band’s longtime Long Beach studio, affectionately known as the Shoebox. Though the room was small, it became a laboratory for the group’s imagination. Hagstrom initially acquired the space in 2016 to practice drums. Over time, Brainstory transformed it into a working studio, filling its limited dimensions with instruments, recording equipment, learning how to make records on its own terms. Shortly after the finished recordings were delivered to Big Crown Records, the band learned that it would have to vacate the spot. The timing was almost too perfect: they had completed one chapter just as circumstances forced them to begin another. “The Watchers,” the EP’s opening track and forthcoming single, is rooted in an Inland Empire urban legend about mysterious figures who would chase cars through a cul-de-sac. Brainstory turns that childhood memory into something cinematic and strange: a hip-hop-inflected groove animated by trumpet, jazz harmony and psychedelic textures.