Sunfold (Kenny Florence on Annuals) - Toy Tugboats

Kenny Florence plays guitar in Annuals, but is not the singer of that particular wonderful North Carolina band. Kenny Florence plays guitar in Sunfold and is the singer of that wonderful North Carolina band. Also, the rest of the people who play instruments in Annuals are his backing band (whoa!), and also Sunfold split the Wet Zoo ep with Annuals earlier this year - holy cross pollination overload - so how's that for a heart-warmingly tight knit family?

Kenny Florence also writes really fantastic songs and has made one of my favorite records of the summer, available Tuesday from Annuals newly launched Terpsikhore Records Collective. I'm not even sure how to explain his project's debut full-length Toy Tugboats. Oregon sounds like early Jimmy Eat world with jazz drumming and really awesome guitar solos. Sailed Off to Sea is a country song with steel guitar with more seriously impressive guitar work. Gnosis starts out with a walking stand-up bass line, dizzying jazz chords, a Buckley-esque laid back throaty vocal delivery and by the end of the track you'll be impressed by dude's jazz chops. To Wake The Eye continues the jazzy glory with a fantastic 50's standard record feel. Shapeshiftin' is a hi-fi Hank Williams song, & Sara the American Winter is sort of like Annuals who forgot to take their adderal.

The record has very few missteps (Gorgee De Rubis' euro-synthpop vibe is a bit lame) which is pretty darn impressive given it's love for genre-hopping. In spite of itself, it manages not to come across as unfocused or immature, but as deep and nefariously effortless in it's unabashed indulgence; think of it as a wonderful mixtape on which every song somehow has the same vocalist. If you enjoy music, in general, I'd be shocked if you didn't thoroughly love Toy Tugboats. It was very hard for me to pick a song to represent the record accurately because of it's freewheeling nature, but i settled on one that incapsulates the jazzy and folky elements of the record pretty well. Please do yourself a favor and pick up the record so you may properly experience the mutli-faceted glory which is Sunfold.

Buy Wet Zoo at insound.
Buy Toy Tugboats from Terpsikhore on Tuesday.

[mp3] Sunfold - Osk