“Floating” Finds Jax Beach’s Sun Child Comfortably Adrift in a Sea of Confident Indie Folk 

Beach communities are not often associated with the kind of grind-it-out hustle culture one might find in a more urban, inland setting. The beach, after all, is where ambition tends to melt in the sun and is less likely to survive a single tropical storm season than our region’s frequently rehabbed dunes.

But maybe there’s something in Northeast Florida’s brackish, sweet-tea-hued water. Or maybe in the bleached-white sand. Certainly something has gotten into a relatively small, but noticeably collaborative group of musicians residing on Jacksonville’s eastern edge. There’s the spiritual-tinged folk of Corey Kilgannon and the irreverent indie-pop of Erica Reese; the retro-country stylings of Patsy’s Daydream, reverb-drenched indie-folk of Babe Honey and the Gulf-and-Western-esque balladry of Howdy – whose pedal-steel work can be heard across the works of several of the aforementioned artists. (Of course, on the area’s marshy fringes there’s Killer Larry and Seagate, who perform swampy and garage-y psychedelic rock, respectively. But we’ll abstain from lumping them in with this group for the purposes of narrative efficiency.)

Beaches-based songwriter Brooke Garwood is a member of this ad hoc collective, which, broadly speaking, is little more than a casual grouping of roots-oriented, acoustic-instrument inclined friends, acquaintances and sometimes collaborators who have, over the last few years, shared a handful of bills and a couple tunes. As Sun Child, Garwood has released more than a half-dozen singles since 2022, as well as a six-song EP, Everything, in 2023, which she pressed, in limited quantities, to vinyl. 

“Floating,” a new single (out October 4), is the latest example of Garwood’s ever-evolving work as Sun Child, showcasing her ambition for the project even as the song’s lyrics explore feelings of alienation and uncertainty. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing / Do I really know who I am?” Garwood asks in the song’s opening verse over a busy acoustic guitar. More than half of “Floating” is about feeling adrift in your formative years – dealing with rejection, “going out on a Monday night” to find solace, levity, commiseration, et al. Not abnormal twentysomething stuff. The rest is about redemption, arriving at a place where you’re self-aware enough to realize that, even though you, as Garwood sings, “love to fly,” you eventually need to come down; a safe landing is preferred. Now this is the stuff of emotional intelligence; something the majority of us will struggle with eternally. 

Garwood started Sun Child as a solo effort; mostly folky, vocals-and-guitar fare. As the project has expanded into an indie-folk ensemble, the songwriting has grown more confident. Produced by Beaches-based musician Patrick Taylor (Trash Panda, Lazuli Vane), with Jeremy Prince (bass), Millie Hudson (violin), Mike Monahan (drums) and Kevin Peacon (guitar) filling in behind Garwood, “Floating,” both lyrically and sonically tracks the project’s progression — from the humble, economic efficiency of a solo singer-songwriter to the cathartic, floor-stomping collective that Sun Child’s become.

As much as Garwood expresses her wish “to come down” on her first release of 2024, she seems to have found, among the community of like-minded musicians in and around the beach, a cohort to, as she pleads in the song’s penultimate stanza, “pull me out.” Or at the very least, help her find the ground for a soft landing.    

Recommended If You Like: Madi Diaz, The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men

Listen On: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Music

All songs featured in our Local Spotlight series can be found on our Fresh Squeeze Playlist and in rotation (at 20-minutes after the hour) on our music discovery radio station, The Independent.