Youth Lagoon

Over the years, the music of Youth Lagoon—the main project of Trevor Powers (Idaho, 1989)—has undergone significant transformations. The catchy bedroom pop melodies of his debut, The Year of Hibernation (Fat Possum/Lefse, 2011), soon gave way to the Animal Collective-style psychedelic atmospheres of Wondrous Bughouse (Fat Possum, 2013), marking a shift from an intimate to a more cosmopolitan Youth Lagoon. In both cases, the indie-alternative press received the albums positively, if not enthusiastically. Two years later came the transitional album, Savage Hills Ballroom (Fat Possum, 2015), where Trevor Powers' boyish, almost androgynous voice began to stand out with a newfound clarity, gaining autonomy from the accompanying instruments. Setting aside the muffled bedroom vibe and the delirious lysergic journeys, the sound became cleaner and more refined—more aligned with a straightforward pop sensibility, though still open to electronic insertions, sometimes even aggressive and unsettling.

Then, silence. For the next eight years, Powers focused on parallel—almost industrial—projects, declaring the Youth Lagoon chapter closed for good. Yet a deep psychological and physical crisis made the unexpected possible: the resurrection of an artistic entity that returned in a somewhat unprecedented form. Heaven Is a Junkyard (Fat Possum, 2023), with its delicate, understated atmosphere, placed Youth Lagoon firmly within the realm of American soft rock.

Sonically, the latest album, Rarely Do I Dream, follows the path laid out by its predecessor, once again benefiting from the production of Rodaidh McDonald (Jamie xx, Sampha, Daughter, King Krule, The xx). That familiar sense of unrest and unease—core to Powers’ poetic vision since the beginning—remains, though this time it is cloaked in a domestic, almost private atmosphere. The spark for writing the twelve new tracks came from discovering a shoebox full of old family VHS tapes.

Halloween pumpkins lighting up at dusk in an American October, visions of nearly mythological animals—as in the claustrophobic and sinister progression of the electronic track Speed Freak—a ball rolling across the lawn, children playing detective near railroad tracks long forgotten by God in some hidden corner of Idaho, like something out of a Stephen King novel. These are the realistic, yet dreamlike and occasionally visionary images that Rarely Do I Dream guards with jealous nostalgia. All of it is harmoniously laced with audio excerpts from the original Powers family tapes, reminiscent in some ways of The Killers' narrative approach in Pressure Machine, where authentic voices of Nephi, Utah—Brandon Flowers’ hometown—introduced tales from deep rural America. In Rarely Do I Dream, however, the town remains a backdrop, the setting where Powers grew up with his very large family, and where the musical phenomenology of the American boy takes shape. The true epicenter of his art lies instead in his perceptions, visions, memories, and emotional-psychic stirrings, all accompanied by a sound that has never been so polished, nuanced, and ambitious in the history of Youth Lagoon.

In Powers’ latest work, there’s melodic intuition—especially in the first half of the album (Gumshoe (Dracula From Arkansas) and Football)—along with repetition, the delicacy of jazzy moments, eerie electronic intrusions, and at times an almost cinematic tension, reminiscent of certain American films from the 1990s. This is especially true in the closing track, Home Movies (1989-1993), where the voice of Mama Powers encourages little Trevor to repeat for the camera: “This is Trevor’s story.”

From the bedroom to the world, from the world to the town, from the town to the family home: this is the trajectory of Youth Lagoon, an indie scene meteor that, fortunately for us, never truly vanished. On the contrary, it has grown up—and listening to this latest album, it has never reached such heights.

15/06/2025