Hi, I’m T Dawn.

Traces of Dawn is my music: dark, moody alternative rock with a cinematic edge, written, sung and recorded in my own studio. I’ve been writing and performing since 2010, and I’m still chasing the same thing: songs that feel like a late night with the lights off and the volume up.

The sound

Warm, dark and a little smoky, with a touch of rasp and big, airy highs when a chorus needs to open up. If you like Stevie Nicks, Mazzy Star or Loreena McKennitt, you’ll find a few shared shadows here. Alongside the vocal songs there’s an instrumental side too: Jekyll’s Will and Monotonic Gray are built from my own MIDI and keys, and more than a few of those pieces would sit happily under a film scene.

The story so far

• 2010: I performed at Music Strategies in Las Vegas, at Caesars Palace.
• 2013: Named Best Female Alternative Artist at the Indie Music Channel Awards for “Controlled By Vanity”.
• 2014: Won Best Alternative Song (“Controlled By Vanity”) and Best Indie Song (“Battled Soldier”) at the X-Pozing Music Awards.
• 2016: Nominated for Best Alternative Song (“Synchronize”) at the Indie Music Channel Awards, held at the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles.
• 2018: Nominated for Alternative Rock Song (“Creeps”) at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, in the same category as Martha Davis & The Motels.
• 2018 to 2025: Traces of Dawn (EP), Jekyll’s Will, Red Dawn and The Race, In The Air, Monotonic Gray, Unbroken, Crash Down, Communications Done, the video for “Are You Listening to Me”, and the album Peeling Of Human Skin.

My songs have also been played on Women of Substance Radio, and I was a guest on the Artist Connection Podcast. My instrumental “Beautiful Birds” was signed by a Canadian company and released on a meditation CD in 2004.

Features and interviews have appeared in Musicians Entourage, JamSphere, BWD Magazine, Vents Magazine, OpenBeast Inspiration Journal and Poze Magazine.

Five Traces of Dawn tracks, including “Monotonic Gray,” “Binary,” “Hexadecimal” and “Octal,” are in the sync catalog of Music of the Sea, a Chicago and Los Angeles company that licenses music for film, TV, games and advertising. See the tracks in their catalog.

Read the full press and awards list on the BTD Radio page.

In the studio

Everything starts at home, in a custom-built studio I put together myself (Beyond the Dawn Studios). I play and program a lot of the instruments, and I know MIDI inside and out.

Dawn in Motion™

Lately I’ve been building the things that make the music. Dawn in Motion™ is my collection of instruments and sound worlds that you can play right in your web browser, with no downloads and no sign-ups. There’s The House That Remembers, a haunted house that plays itself, Space Cosmic Drift, Forest at Dawn, a music box that composes on its own, and Oracle’s Ascension, my very first musical game, where every gem is a note. I designed and built all of it myself.

Play Dawn in Motion (free demos, and more on the way).

Behind the screen

Music is only half of what I do. I’m an A+ certified computer technician and I’ve worked in the computer industry for many years, and I still do. I studied programming in college, I’ve built computers, and I’ve taught others how to use them.

I build websites from the ground up, including BTD Radio and sites for customers, and I write my own HTML. That’s how the free tools for artists on BTD Radio got made. The same curiosity carries into my songs: I like knowing how every piece works, from the first note to the last click.

Starlight

The fans who stick around are my Starlights. Something just for you is in the works, so watch this space.

More from me

I also run BTD Radio, a 24/7 station for independent music, and I build free tools for artists. If you make music too, come say hi at btdradio.com.

For bookings, interviews or just to say hello, get in touch.