Review of The Toy Box from The Wire by Byron Coley

Twink's The Toy Box is an impressive little package. As well as the three CDs, there's a swell book of cartoons, all packed up in a banded cardboard box. What could be finer? Well, a few things probably, but this box is still pretty hep. Each of the disks has its own title: "Small Sound All Around", "7 Pieces for Pling Plong", "Welcome to the Jingle". The tracks all feature toy piano as the lead, but there are lots of other things tossed on top also: from Ralph Carney's sax to a variety of toy instruments and on and on. The tunes range from a Metallica cover to nursery rhyme improvs, and there is a lot less cutesy-pie dynamism than you might fear. There is some, of course, this is (after all) music to be played by cartoon bunnies. But inside that context, it shreds.