Together We Make the Dream Real
Travis Egedy, 186 pgs, Alien Body, alienbody.com, $40 USD
The late 2000s was a storm of mixed emotions. Hungover from a war on terror, the western world seemed to be rounding the bend into a brighter progressive future, especially if you were young. A surge of independent artists and scenes gave everyone a place to feel alien.
From this stew came Travis Egedy (aka Pictureplane), a Denver-based musician best known for his 2009 album Dark Rift, remixes from noise rock knob-adjusters HEALTH and coining the term ‘witch house.’ His book, Together We Make The Dream Real, is a lengthy tome of compiled poetry, lyrics, tour notes, flyers, runic doodles, vintage Ninja Turtle trading cards and collage-like ephemera. An earnest and unfiltered travelogue of the early 2010s, Together parses half-thoughts about isolation, extinction, loss and art among a frenzied scene. On one amusingly contrasted page, Egedy laments, “Sick and tired of the world, can’t help that I’m a loner” above a VIP pass to the dancehall party ensemble Major Lazer.
There are plenty of strolls down memory lane. Flyers for gigs with Washed Out, The Death Set and Big Freedia. The unending development of a personal aesthetic. So many moments of those years to crinkle your nose at, like previously all-consuming existential questions that seem trivial in the rear-view but simultaneously pivotal to a current self. This is a personal but shared history for people of an era and an interesting collection for those still trying to make sense of their twenties.