Photo by Erik Fellenstein
Audio By Carbonatix
Jade Oracle’s upcoming EP, “Veiled Shadows,” is a musical phoenix. It arose from the ashes of a trifecta of atrocious circumstances that the Denver-based neo-soul duo faced over the last year: a breakup and subsequent band restructuring, topped off with a myriad of health issues weathered by singer and keyboardist Coy Lim.
Despite the unprecedented number of challenges Lim and her co-conspirator, drummer and electronic magician Calvin Davis, faced to bring “Veiled Shadows” to life, it may be Jade Oracle’s best work yet.
Slated to drop on all platforms on Friday, July 17, the EP features six original songs that openly explore the pure potential hidden within grief and anger. Touching on topics from heartbreak to healing colonialism through Queer Asian-American identities, it’s a “love letter to the revolutionary soul,” according to the band. Guest artists, including Lady Los, Christina Adamoli and Zoe Moff, helped bring the record to life.
“The message of Veiled Shadows is that powerlessness is manufactured by those who benefit from us staying small and scared,” Lim says. “It is to remind us that if we all start doing a little, we can change so much.”
Photo by Erik Fellenstein
Lim, whose vocal stylings earned her the title of Best Neo-Soul Vocalist in 2024 and a spot on Westword’s list of R&B and Neo-Soul Vocalists to Watch in 2025, first wrote and recorded the EP last year, during a breakup that chiseled the group into its current iteration.
“It’s hard to be musically honest and raw about a relationship ending while it’s ending while you’re recording it,” Lim says. “When you record it again, and you’re not in that space, you can be more emotionally honest throughout the process.”
Even while first recording the EP in 2025, Lim and Davis knew another session in the sound booth was needed for Veiled Shadows to reach its full potential.
“The first time around, there were so many factors going into why I don’t think it felt good and didn’t sound as good as we wanted it to,” Lim says. “But now, I’m so excited that we waited and that we redid this because we are putting out a record of music that I am genuinely so proud of.”
Photo by Erik Fellenstein
Things were not always as they appeared throughout Lim’s relationship and the EP’s first recording session, hence the record’s mystical, intangible name.
The title track and overture, “Veiled Shadows,” was a last-minute addition that Lim wrote just two days before Jade Oracle recorded the EP for the second and final time.
The first half of the song is an expression of grief, while the second is soaked in anger. To Lim, it’s a lyrical explanation of the meaning of ‘‘veiled shadow:’ someone whose words misrepresent their intentions.
“I feel like this EP would be incomplete without this last-minute addition, and it was a beautiful reminder for me that some of the best things I make aren’t meticulously overplanned,” Lim says. “Having another song that embodies the anger we all need to feel in order to create systemic change during this incendiary year seemed correct, and I’m so glad we took the time to add this track.”
Although Jade Oracle was stripped to half its former size before the EP was re-recorded, neither Lim nor Davis considered simplifying the record’s instrumentation. Instead, the two adapted and overcame.
“We were fully committed to the bit,” Lim says. “I don’t think that simple things, like logistics or how many hands we have available, have ever stopped our ambition.”
Davis learned to play the synthesizer and bass parts from the drum set through a complicated routing and automation endeavor that took “mind-bending levels of math to make this work,” Lim says.
“I’m using triggers on my drums to play software instruments, so the bass will be played by hitting the kick drum or hitting the symbol trigger,” Davis says. “It’s kind of crazy playing it, but it really ends up being pretty locked in at the end of the day.”
Jade Oracle will celebrate its new EP with a release party at 8 p.m. Friday, July 17, at Cap Hill Confidential. Featuring Luckiee B, Geo Conjure Oddly, DJ Bugs Honey and Lady Los, the evening promises to be a one-of-a-kind experience celebrating LGBTQ+ people, women and people of color.
“As a mixed, queer, Asian woman myself, this is the community that has made me feel the most seen, the most safe, and the most loved since I moved here 10 years ago,” Lim says. “People who belong to all of these demographics face extra challenges in the entertainment industry, and I wanted to create one special night where these issues didn’t stand in the way of the divas.”
Jade Oracle fans can catch more of its hypnotic, transformative sound at 7 p.m. Saturday, July 25, at the campground stage during RiNo’s Underground Music Showcase, and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 26, at a secret spot in the Baker neighborhood during the new DIY music festival Blucifer’s First Rodeo.
“Music that does not comment on the world as we see it isn’t art at all; it’s simply noise,” Lim says. “I hope that this record encourages all of us to be bolder, braver, and to live with more integrity. Lest we forget, community is all we have. Now is not the time to think individualistically, and it never will be.”
“Veiled Shadows” EP-release party, 8 p.m. Friday, July 17, Cap Hill Confidential, 1526 E. Colfax Ave. Tickets are $24.
