Heather Trost completed a new album, Desert Flowers, and she’s letting us put it out! This is her third stint away from A Hawk and a Hacksaw, her Eastern-Europe-gone-bananas band with husband Jeremy Barnes, and much like AHAAH, the musicality and musicianship on here is extraordinary. Heather writes angular avant pop for her band, the kind that fans of Catherine Ribeiro, The Zombies, or The Ex would like, and on this album, she truly coalesces her sound into something both alien and fun. “Blue Fish” is the first single, a lullaby with a stinging synth that was chosen by director Peter Strickland to be used as a repeating musical theme in his latest movie, Flux Gourmet. The song recounts a dream resembling a cryptic prophecy: “a gray bird appeared to me on a pebble beach. When the bird opened his beak there was a blue fish flopping around and speaking to me.”
As Trost put together her new album Desert Flowers, she imagined herself sitting out on the mesa amidst the arid climate and sand. Even with such little water to survive, wildflowers bloom. This vision is an embellishment of Trost’s Albuquerque surroundings, an intersection of rural splendor and emptiness. She remains focused on those purple, yellow and orange flowers with faces beaming up to the sky, thriving on very little. “How does a flower grow in the desert?” she sings. Desert Flowers postulates the potential for new life.
Written and recorded in her home studio, Trost’s album began with harmonic frameworks, allowing the melodies to naturally take root. Lush strings and bass are complimented by a slow guitar groove, as Trost soulfully fantasizes about Earth’s regeneration. Each song conveys how opening one's eyes, both literally and metaphysically, is the key to finding beauty. Desert Flowers is out November 11th.
Watch a clip of the Flux Gourmet featuring Blue Fish here
Preorder the CD and LP here