For Brittany Davis, sound is three-dimensional. It's size, shape, and color. It's language.

"As a blind person, I've never had an actual visual experience," they say. "Sound is the way I've always seen my world."

Brittany brings that world to cinematic life with Images Issues, their full-length debut as a solo artist. Arriving on the heels of 2022's I Choose to Live — an introductory EP that was championed by outlets like NPR (who hosted Davis for a Tiny Desk Concert) and SPIN Magazine (who praised Davis' "intuitive virtuosity across deeply-felt rock, funk, and R&B") — it's a wildly creative project that obliterates the traditional borders between genre and job. Brittany isn't just the album's vocalist; they're also the songwriter, engineer, co-producer, and multi-instrumentalist responsible for nearly every sound on the album. Those sounds are just as diverse as the person who created them, with Image Issues making room for gospel piano, hip-hop grooves, house beats, jazz chords, self-made samples, and everything in between. It's a wide mix — and it's all Brit. 

"Image Issues is like a Prince record or a Stevie Wonder record, because Brit plays everything," says producer Josh Evans, whose credits include projects by Pearl Jam, Brandi Carlile, and Gary Clark Jr. "Every high hat, every kick, every snare, every bass line, every vocal, every keyboard, every effect, every texture — that's Brit. Brit was even going into Logic and using verbal commands to edit MIDI velocity settings, cut, paste, and loop. It was amazing to watch." 

The recording sessions for Image Issues took place over several years, a time that found Evans and Brittany also working together on an album by Painted Shield. A Seattle-based supergroup featuring Brittany, Pearl Jam co-founder Stone Gossard, drumming legend Matt Chamberlain, and folksinger Mason Jennings, Painted Shield showcased Brittany's ability to operate within a band. Image Issues is a different kind of showcase, highlighting the artist's skills not as a collaborator, but as the curator of a sonic world that's entirely their own.

"I feel like I've printed my life on wax," says the Kansas City native, who was raised by their grandmother while their mother served a prison sentence. Blind since birth, Brittany discovered a world of vivid, vibrant color in music. By 3 years old, they were playing piano, mimicking the birdsongs they heard outside the living room window. A childhood appreciation for gospel and jazz gave way to a teenage obsession with hip-hop and R&B. Later, after the family moved to Seattle, Brittany crossed paths with Afro-punk musicians, rock artists, and members of the black rock & roll scene, which opened up new worlds of sound.

Trauma always lingered in the background, though. Brittany was sexually abused by a family member at a young age, and their father died a decade later, the victim of senseless gun violence. Those events both resurface on Image Issues, an album that finds its creator singing not only about empowerment and celebration, but about pain and abuse, too. Running throughout the record are a number of spoken-word tracks, including a recurring series called "Treadmill Memories." These improvised sound collages — filled with discordant piano, mantras, taunts, cries, and the rhythmic sound of a treadmill — evoke the pain of Brittany's childhood abuse, while also providing context for the music itself. 

"They're like a sonic movie," Brittany says. "The rhythm of exercise — especially the clicking of a treadmill, the jarring nature of a machine that's just relentless — reminds me of the childhood abuse I endured. 'Treadmill Memories' is my inner dialogue…my attempt to keep up with the overload of information that I had to process at a young age. I'm playing both the abused and the abuser in those tracks, and by acting out those things, I'm exorcizing some of that trauma."

Image Issues begins with the first iteration of "Treadmill Memories," and it's an arresting introduction to an album that doesn't pull any punches. What follows is a record that balances the light and the dark, the victorious and the victimized, the empowered and the uncertain. On "So Fly," Brittany gives themself a pep talk over a soundtrack of disco drums and '70s soul. ("That song is about me trying so hard to feel the beauty that people say I have," Brittany explains. "I've never seen myself, and I've been told the craziest things about how I look. 'So Fly' is me saying, 'I'm gonna try to give this beautiful thing a shot.'") On "Sepricon," Brittany transforms into a furious, fiery rapper, spitting rhymes over a background of brass and beats. "Through the Motions" is a minimalist electro-pop song for late nights, "Daddy's Gerl" is a hip-hop prayer to a lost parent, and "Halfway" is a spoken-word sound collage that balances the push-and-pull of Brittany's inner dialogue with gorgeous snippets of melody.

"It almost feels a little subversive to make art like this," says Josh Evans. "The album has dance songs, ballads, hooks, and grooves, but we're also sneaking a real art project into a pop record. No one's ever trying to reign it in. What really surprised me was Brit's honesty and fearlessness when singing about things like blindness, loss, and being mistreated by the world. There's not a lot of bitterness; there's just honesty and realness. There's a hope in this music that's inspiring."

Once Brittany and Josh finished assembling most of the record, Josh asked Brittany to add one final layer. "I lined up all the songs and asked Brit to play grand piano across the entire record, just improvising," he remembers. "Those parts were incorporated into the songs, and it's almost like a conversation between Brit and Brit's own music — like the piano is talking to the track itself. The extra layer of piano further humanizes the electronic or loop-based songs on the record, and it's all improv! With Image Issues, there's always something that's happening, shifting, or changing — and, once again, it's all Brit." 

If you ask Brittany Davis, though, Image Issues is the work of divine intervention. "I'm just a vessel of sound," they say. "I'm not the music; I'm the delivery system, the boombox. You don't ask the boombox the question. The boombox just plays the music. Somebody else is making this music, man. Everyone has their own beliefs, but I believe it's coming directly from the divine. I'm just the projector. It's like, the TV screen doesn't say 'I made the movie.' It just shows you what's made."