Styrofoam Winos - Styrofoam Winos (2021)

Styrofoam Winos are comprised of songwriters, multi-instrumentalists, and longtime friends Joe Kenkel, Trevor Nikrant, and Lou Turner. Since forming in 2016, the trio has performed incessantly in the DIY and experimental music scenes in their native Nashville, TN and regionally—sharing bills with a diverse range of artists like Josephine Foster, Bill Direen, and Simon Joyner. Their live show exemplifies the band’s radically communal approach, rotating vocal and instrumental duties throughout the set (which never repeats).

The group's self-titled debut studio album (out Feb. 12, 2021 from Sophomore Lounge) is both spacious and intimate, with moments raucously hard and feathery soft — a range that is as unpredictable as it is rare. Born of improvisation and written together, Styrofoam Winos emanates the warmth of collaboration. With no single ego at the helm, the Winos create a shared musical world through self-aware lyrics, which are occupied by stories, characters, and strange encounters with a styrofoam-and-wine society. The tales are narrated by Turner, Kenkel and Nikrant, as they effortlessly trade vocals from track to track, or within songs, To La Tengo-style.

Styrofoam Winos was engineered and mixed by Loney Hutchins (Lylas, William Tyler) and mastered by Andrija Tokic (Josephine Foster, Alabama Shakes). Kenkel, Nikrant, and Turner tracked the album live, each leading a handful of songs and sharing backing band duties between guitars, bass and drums. They returned to the songs with background vocals, flutes, synthesizers, and friends: frequent collaborator Ross Collier (therevox, omnichord) and Austin Hoke (cello, singing saw). Styrofoam Winos is an intimate yet transportive record-freely exploring sounds and themes within a tightly tethered bond of musicianship and friendship.