I feel kind of like an obnoxious monthly magazine columnist writing so sporadically on this website- but I can promise you that it’s because of the ridiculous amount of work that’s been building up over this semester and just general lack of enthusiasm to type out long paragraphs. I’m currently really happy though, because I just added about 2 gigs of music to my iTunes of various different genres. After browsing through everything (majority of which was obscure Scandi Pop and trashy American bands – Read: Tennis, Wu Lyf) I found Youth Lagoon. (note that this isn’t any compromise on the hipster cred)
Youth Lagoon is the solo project of Trevor Powers, a lonely musician from a fucking random city (Boise, Idaho, if I’m not mistaken) in the middle of nowhere (no shit, it’s Idaho). The sound of his debut album is instantly recognizable as the work of one man, owing to the fact that even though it’s an electronic project, it’s relatively simple and down to earth. That being said, most of the songs are pretty incredible and they manage to interweave some fantastically catchy melodies with beats that’ll float around in the distant, dreamy meanderings of your mind.
Even then, Youth’s Lagoon’s music is hard to describe in a succinct manner. At times, the songs are sad, filled with childhood memories, long forgotten (listen to “Seventeen”) and layered over bright electronic piano riffs. “Seventeen”‘s ambient beat, infectious hook, and melancholic but inspiring stories of “When I was seventeen, my mother said to me, “Don’t stop imagining. The day that you do is the day that you die” make it one of the best songs on the entire record.
And sometimes, the songs take an entirely different turn. “Daydream” feels like an adventure, soaring through vast, open valleys with the wind blowing in your face. For some reason, I was reminded of Bon Iver’s Calgary, especially due to it’s emphatic synthesizer intro, leading into Powers’ ghostly vocals that seem to come out empty space. The song has an absolutely wonderful hook, replicated by synths, electric guitar, and even a chorus of multiple Trevor Powers’s.
I heard this album during a really long car ride from Thane to Parel in Mumbai, so the fact that I was staring at distant fireworks going off in the sky, lit up buildings and highways has made me slightly biased towards the album. Still, it’s a pretty awesome album to listen to whilst doing something of that nature. Let Trevor Power’s echoey (and for some reason quite girly) voice and synthesized masterpieces take you to a place you won’t regret being at.
