As Heather 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. Using the messages from the unconscious during sleep, the record ultimately conceives a bridge to the world beyond our own.

Written and recorded in her home studio, Trost began with harmonic frameworks, allowing the melodies to naturally take root. Introductory track “Frog And Toad Are Friends” – yes, named after the book – is like a surf song from a sci-fi movie. Trost sees it as a mindwipe, “a playful kind of romp to help shake off the cobwebs and get the bones moving.”