Jekyll / Hyde is the debut EP from Taryn Blake Miller who records under the name Your Friend.

Written and recorded over a two year period in her adopted hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, Miller used live performances to develop the songs gradually both as a solo performer as well enlisting the help of a rotating cast of supporters from the town’s music community.

Fusing warm atmospheric guitars with a focused and emotionally rich sense of song craft, Your Friend presents a keen balance of experimentation and structure. Momentum carries these creations through dramatic shifts that feel surprising, inevitable and always authentic. Fragmentary and evocative, Miller’s lyrics are a collage of details taken from her life as well as her friends and family. Born in her bedroom and developed on stage, Miller describes the record as “deeply personal. For a long time it was hard to play these songs out because they were written for myself.”

Miller and co-producer Jordan Geiger (bandleader for the Hospital Ships), set out to capture her intimate live energy but with refinements. Though her bare-bones stage show was in high demand, eventually going from playing Lawrence house parties and clubs to opening for national acts who passed through locally, she wanted the songs to be more fleshed out for the record. Bringing in bass, drums and keyboards, as well as layered guitars and vocals, Miller self-released Jekyll/Hyde in August 2013 to an already devoted fan base that quickly multiplied. For the Domino release, Miller and Geiger have added even more depth with freshly recorded live drums and vocals. The result is a captivating debut that sounds fully realized in its ideal form.

When asked for the significance of the name Your Friend, Miller gets to the fundamental core of her music: That there is power in leaving yourself exposed, to trusting a part of yourself with people who don’t know you. “I really like the risk in being vulnerable to someone,” Miller says. “There’s risk in music that way; I feel that at every show. It could go terribly wrong but that’s what I thrive on.”