Trevor Giuliani

Trevor Giuliani
Subcontrario (In Stereo)
Dovecote Records
Journey - a meandering, wandering adventure.
The journey epitomizes the life and music of Trevor Giuliani. With each song you’re taken with him, lyrically, drawing you into each of his stories. Each song veers from layered musical arrangements, dodging from conventional and formulaic song structures. As you’re lulled into predicting the next phrase or note, Giuliani pleasantly diverges the song into another world.
Born in the outskirts of New York in suburban Connecticut, Trevor Giuliani left to study musical composition at NYU, which Trevor says, “didn’t last long,” that, “school seemed so arbitrary and wastefully expensive, and my education was by no means going to be confined to a $40k+ a year institution.” So he started his first journey, wandering around NYCs Lower East Side, 18 years old, couch surfing, meeting people he never thought he’d meet, living places he never thought he’d live, rooftops, basements, and making friends in the unlikeliest of places. One of these friends is Katrina Kerns, a touring musician in Sufjan Stevens band, who ended up lending background vocals on Giuliani’s album.
It’s seemingly difficult to pigeon-hole Giuliani’s songs into a singer/songwriter formula when each arrangement is finely detailed and accompanied by both acoustic and electronic instruments. Listeners will be surprised by the dynamic of the album – the breadth of the ups and downs. You’ll find off-kilter, syncopated and deliberately out-of-time plucks met by hits that could seem scattered and unfocused if heard on their own. Woven together, however, they paint a picture to be appreciated for its precision. It’s deliberate.
“We are fumbling through the trees hardly able to sort out that there are roots, and that we are fruit. This is the habitat of Nubian Forest.”
Having lived his young adult life in and around New York, Giuliani recently moved to Portland, Oregon to escape into the wilderness presaged by his music. Explaining this, Giuliani says, “New York City from 18 to 22 can provide good incubation space, but now I want a garden and actually know my recycling is being recycled.”
His lyrics, his stories, his music and arrangements all coalesce to transcend the urban setting where they were born, and directly to a place, now, more pastoral and heavenly. Coupled with this, Giuliani delivers baritone vocals, not afraid to break its range, conjuring tones, which are hopeful, earnest, melancholic, and commanding; at other times angelic and otherworldly, such as the apocalyptic track “All Nights Rest”.
It’s sub contrary, to say the least, that music incubated in congestion and grime is able to transport you on the idyllic journey of its author. Some would say his music is spiritually transcending. Giuliani says “I think it’s an open spaces record, and thus there are spaces for everyone in this album.”
The music was written, demoed, recorded, mixed in New York with Dean Baltulonis (The Hold Steady, Darker My Love) and Dave Lynch.