Over the course of four years, James Jackson Toth and long-time collaborator Jarvis Taveniere paired newly written songs with ones drawn from decades ago and brought together musicians from across the various eras of his time recording as Wooden Wand—in the end creating an accidental self-imposed This Is Your Life. “I was bringing people together from my history and writing songs that reckon with my past.” The resulting album, James & the Giants (out June 30th via Kill Rock Stars Nashville) picks at the seams of the memories borne of that experience and finds new footing in reframing memory. Whether reassessing his origin story as a child on Staten Island during “Islander” or detailing the complex and nuanced nature of even the closest relationships on the horn-laden “Friends Forever”, James & the Giants trades in the imagery and sounds of Americana, but subtly and thoughtfully tilts the frame until a new, mature perspective emerges. Nothing is as simple as it seems, he seems to say, but the complications are part of the beauty.