I’ve been wanting to start incorporating music into this blog. Music has always been a huge part of my life and over the years has even become part of my art and career. It is one of the most universal art forms, something that just about everyone relates to and often incorporates other forms. It is often not just an audible art but also visual. Albums come with album art; photographs, illustrations and videos are made for and inspired by musicians and their music.  So, to kick off my first music post, I thought who better to start with than my very own cousin, Trevor Dickson who just released a solo album entitled Passoin Fruits last month.

Trevor has been making music ever since I can remember. “I’ve been making ‘bedroom albums’ since I was fourteen years old” he tells me but this is the first full length solo album that has come to full fruition. Just as with any other art form, it’s hard to finalize the product and put it out there for all the world to see when you’re constantly changing not just your art but yourself. To make art, you have to be pretty fearless. “It’s a disease I believe most songwriters have, especially me. You start making a record, you get about halfway done… and then your sound or style changes just enough that you start all over again.” Lucky for Trevor, he has friends that challenge him. He took part in a friend’s songwriting club, “Duende Lodge” where they each dedicated an entire day to writing and recording as many songs or ideas as possible in ten hours and shared them that evening. He explains, “there is a certain magic that lives in the moment of creation, when you are not overthinking every note or lyric. Just having fun. I tried to capture that feeling on this record. The Duende sessions have changed how I write now. I try to finish a song while it’s still fresh, rather than dragging it through weeks or months of uncertainty and perfectionism. That can be so boring, and then the moment is gone.”

The summery sounds of Trevor’s album came just in time to warm us up in the cold winter months. Moving across the country from Tacoma to New York in 2011, he purged himself of his “nosiest” possessions. Armed with a simple Harmony student sized classical guitar, a ukulele, a water jug and shakers for percussion and plucking a roommate’s cello for bass notes, he says these songs were written “in different bedrooms and closets of Brooklyn, basically wherever I could find a quiet place.” This simplistic mentality Trevor has adapted for his music has worked to his advantage. While his previous two bands, The Elephants and The Nightgowns thrived on rock and synth to bring us upbeat, danceable tunes, Trevor has kept the same attitude only this time it’s just him. “The songs are the shortest and folkiest I’ve ever written. I think of some of these more as poems or very short stories than I do songs. I was trying to make a folk record with a touch of tropical, equal parts celebratory and tragic, and ultimately a visual record, where the music evokes images in the same way that words do.” He succeeded. And to top it off, he has this fantastic music video made by the one and only Romain Laurent that made it to Vimeo’s top staff picks. Visual art inspired by and for music.

You can listen to and purchase Passion Fruits (as well as his EP, Summer Legs from 2013) on Trevor’s website, www.trevordickson.com. (Please purchase! Support independent artists!) And if you’re a vinyl junkie like myself, you’ll get lucky in a couple months as there will be a small pressing of Passion Fruits from United in Nashville. “It’s how I feel the record was meant to be heard: in 2 parts, and on a record player instead of an iPod.”