Led by Young Widows' singer/guitarist Evan Patterson, Jaye Jayle take their gritty version of Americana in wide-ranging and gripping directions. Initially Patterson's folk- and blues-tinged solo project, the band's dusty, haunted sound came into its own on 2016's stripped-down House Cricks and Other Excuses to Get Out. Jaye Jayle added more dimensions to their contrasts of the traditional and the cutting edge with the electronics and avant-garde production of 2018's No Trail and Other Unholy Paths and 2020's Prisyn, both of which emphasized Patterson's growing gifts as a storyteller and sound-shaper.

Patterson began playing guitar at an early age, and rebelled against the conservatism of his hometown of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, by immersing himself in punk and hardcore. After moving to Louisville, he played with bands including National Acrobat and Breather Resist before forming the post-hardcore trio Young Widows in 2006. Following the band's 2011 album In and Out of Youth and Lightness, Patterson wanted to expand his musical repertoire. He worked with keyboardist/vocalist Jonathan Glen Wood and bassist Todd Cook in Old Baby, a band whose haunted country-rock spawned 2013's Love Hangover and 2015's New Music. In late 2013, Patterson formed Jaye Jayle as a tribute to the timeless personas of classic folk and blues artists. His trips to New Mexico to visit an ex inspired the stark songs he recorded on his phone, which he released as his 2014 debut album, It's Jayle Time! These songs were also issued as four 7"s that arrived in 2014 and 2015 on four different labels.

To flesh out the project's sound for 2016's Sargent House debut, House Cricks and Other Excuses to Get Out, Patterson enlisted Wood and Cook along with two more Louisville scene veterans, Freakwater drummer Neal Argabright and multi-instrumentalist Corey Smith. After spending much of 2016 on the road, the band worked with another Sargent House artist, Emma Ruth Rundle, on 2017's split EP The Time Between Us. For the group's second album, No Trail and Other Unholy Paths, Jaye Jayle tightened the lineup to Patterson, Cook, Argabright, and Smith, and expanded their sound to include atmospheric passages and synth-driven rock as well as folk- and blues-influenced fare. Recorded by Warren Christopher Gray and produced by David Lynch's musical director and sound designer Dean Hurley, the album arrived in June 2018. The following year, Jaye Jayle released "Soline," a song recorded during the No Trail sessions that didn't make it onto the album.

While on a lengthy tour, Patterson was contacted by couture designer Ashley Rose to work with Ben Chisholm and Chelsea Wolfe on the music for an upcoming fashion show. Collaborating online, Chisholm and Patterson ended up making an album's worth of moody, electronic-based tracks that Gray and Patterson turned into Jaye Jayle's fourth album, Prisyn. Delving into topics like technology's addictive qualities and the confining conservatism of Southern culture, the album appeared in August 2020. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi