From 2004 to today, Vancouver’s Josh Cole has performed as the bassist of critically acclaimed jazz group The October Trio. The group has played at festivals across North America, recorded and performed with Juno Award-winning trumpet player Brad Turner and took home the 2006 CBC Galaxie Rising Star Award for best new artist.

However, the multi-faceted Cole still felt something was missing in his musical diet. In 2007, he formed Here Is What Is, a five-piece band spanning everything from danceable indie-pop to emotionally charged slowcore and ambient passages. Now, the band has released its debut EP, Done Before It Starts, and it’s embarking on a western Canadian tour of its own.

“Like anybody, I have different tastes and different sides to who I am as a person, artist and musician,” Cole says. “I’ve dug indie-rock since I was a teenager, but it just so happened that jazz became a strong presence in my life and I went that way. I’ve never stopped playing electric bass and listening to this kind of music, it’s just never developed into something that took precedence during that time. After I was done school, I started hanging out with these guys [and] realized there was some talent there and fun to be had, so we just did it.”

With his experience performing in sombre, seated concert settings with The October Trio, Cole still seems surprised at the energetic response garnered by what he describes as the “rock gigs” of Here Is What Is, even though the band’s music is far from rocking. Perhaps he’s simply been too concentrated on playing his music to even notice what’s happening around him, but lord knows what’ll happen when he experiences his first mosh pit.

“Being a bass player, I’m pretty notorious for having my eyes closed and my head down,” Cole laughs. “With rock ’n’ roll, it seems that people are more into dancing, partying and having fun. People are listening just as attentively, they’re just responding in different ways because the music elicits that. At the same time, sometimes when you’re playing a place like the Beat Niq or another jazz club, you can play with a party attitude and it’ll become a party.”

The band’s membership is bolstered by Dave and Jess Park, a multi-instrumental brother-and-sister duo, which provides the main vocals.

“They’re very sibling-like, they both still live at home,” smirks Cole. “Wait… if they read this, I might get in trouble. Oh, who cares? They’re both ridiculously talented and creative. Dave joined the band first and he told me his sister was a really good singer. Holy smoke, not only is she a good singer, but she’s also a songwriter, guitar player and she can play keys.”

For the six-song EP, Cole and company decided to shy away from the typical approach of a songwriter supported by backing musicians. Instead, they simply gathered in the studio for a week, recorded semi-improvised song sketches and later pieced them together.

“We didn’t have a mandate for how we wanted to sound,” Cole says. “In our first year, we were basically in hiding, just doing it for fun. We realized that to tap into our full creative potential, we should probably just jam together. None of our new music was intentional; we just decided to see what we sounded like as a band.”

The EP’s songs are also connected lyrically by the theme of broken relationships, in all of their many forms. As Cole explains, the music actually turned out far heavier than he expected, but he’s happy it may provide introspective food for thought.

“The song ‘You Can’t Not Dance’ is about realizing that your friends are fake,” he says. “‘Done Before It Starts’ and some of the other songs are about having your own issues and not being able to deal with what’s really going on. The result is not having your head in the right space, missing out on certain opportunities, not responding to things in the right way and, ultimately, broken relationships. The lyrics are kind of dark at times, but, again, we just decided that it is what it is.”