In 2023, Youth Lagoon’s Trevor Powers made one thing of an archaeological discovery in Idaho: A field of house motion pictures documenting the indie musician’s childhood had been fossilizing within the basement of his dad and mom’ home. Powers popped the tapes right into a VHS participant and watched his youthful self crackle into body, as an elusive previous life—Easter egg hunts, bathtime, yard laughter—all pranced by in pixels.
On Hardly ever Do I Dream, Youth Lagoon’s latest LP, Powers collages these remnants of the previous right into a sonic scrapbook that units the Powers clan beside the diner waitresses, devils, and detectives of a fabled American West. This pastiche of fantasy and reminiscence is as shifty as its supply materials: Powers nimbly flits between loping piano melodies, shredding guitars, and buzzing synths to attain a gothic frontier strewn each with vampires and blood relations. It’s an bold enterprise that highlights Powers’ items for lyrical microfiction and stirring compositions, with an emotional core that feels fugitive. As Powers harnesses a hard-earned confidence to relate the world of Hardly ever Do I Dream, he leaves a few of his idiosyncratic vulnerability—a effectively of uncooked feeling unmatched by even probably the most pathos-inducing VHS clips—within the rearview.
Produced by Powers and collaborator Rodaidh McDonald (who additionally labored on Youth Lagoon’s Heaven is a Junkyard), Hardly ever Do I Dream barrels ahead with an outlaw’s velocity. A lot of its songs reference Western themes (revolvers, pistols, “Vera Cruz on videotape,” and Jesse James all get talked about), however its palette transcends geography and style: The report’s cinematic songs draw from a toy chest of sounds, from prickly arpeggiating synths to outros that evoke metal drums. Tracks like “Gumshoe (Dracula from Arkansas),” “Lucy Takes a Image,” and “Canary” really feel closing-credits-ready, as horns and strings collapse into lingering instrumentals tailored for hightailing a stolen Buick by a canyon. Intermittently, Powers’ childhood recollections reduce in like weak alerts on the automobile radio, spectral and spliced. On the report’s opening observe, “Neighborhood Scene,” a male voice, describing the method of transferring 8mm movie to VCR, nearly appears like a police dispatcher.
Hardly ever Do I Dream comprises some severe guitar shredding, courtesy of longtime collaborator Erik Eastman, and a driving rhythm part. Powers’ prized instrument, nonetheless, has at all times been his peculiar voice, an alien warble able to speaking trembling uncertainties. On Hardly ever Do I Dream, he continues to sing with intimate but unsettling precision, using previous vocal tips to uncanny impact—the stripped-down observe “My Stunning Woman,” for instance, options the identical bizarre syncopation as Powers lent to the phrase “Idaho Alien” again in 2023. Floating above the preparations, Powers’ voice has a much less ragged edge on a lot of Hardly ever Do I Dream; he sounds much less uncooked, keening, and remoted, extra fluidly built-in into the manufacturing. This variation has a combined impact, making the album a smoother pay attention whereas sacrificing a few of Powers’ attribute experimentation.