TREVOR WILSON - PLANTS AND BODIES

Plants and Bodies is a collection of two song cycles, released in March 2008. At their heart, the songs are written for piano and voice, but are accompanied in the Plant cycle by piano, bass, additional vocals, strings, accordion, and harp. Now that this album has spent some time being absorbed by its audience, we've been hearing feedback- this has now been folded into our initial take on the album.

At first listen, Plants could seem unnecessarily multi-layered, its simple cover perhaps a clever joke. Hopefully there is an 'in' for even the casual listener. If five songs filled with plant metaphors seems a bit too heavy-handed, then perhaps the pulsing bass lines and soulful melodies can provide some good old-fashioned satisfaction.

Try to imagine that Plants, as compositions and recordings, can be represented as the high school hallway during break. Some predictable groupings coming your way, an age-old conflict between boys in love with the same girl, a disatisfied teacher... varying shades of transparency. And then, there are some particularly hard to understand cases. Maybe a guy who's dressed goth, but you don't really 'get it'. Maybe he seems confused himself. Whatever's in the hallway, it's all there at the same time. This contrast between complexity and simplicity runs rampant throughout all aspects of the album- freedom and construction together.

And if Plants hides simple ideas underneath its busy production, Bodies houses the most complex ideas under a seemingly simple hood. A formal investigation into the harmonic passages of 'Astronaut', for example, would make Trevor's own head spin. But, the production includes simple piano and voice, and the simplest message of all- he loves.

The songs for Plants were recorded mostly in Rehoboth, during the summer of 2007 and the following winter. Amelia Meath performed on these tracks as a singer. in February of 2008 in NYC, JJ Beck engineered the string parts for Little Princess and Patient Eyes. Heather Sommerlad, Adele Mori, and Marie Valigorsky played violin, cello, and viola respectively.

Stream this album here.
Lyrics for this album here.

One Mile 1
Mighty Spruce 2
Little Princess 3
Bitter Passage 4
Patient Eyes 5
Astronaut 6
Your Spine 7
Syrinx 8
Want 9
No 10
Ankles 11