Youth Lagoon: Wondrous Bughouse

Trevor Powers’ 2011 debut, The Year Of Hibernation, was an inpressive piece of work. Now, with the follow-up, he’s moving from black and white to Technicolour, from Super 8 to high def.

For confirmation, search out album highlight ‘Dropla’, play it as loud as you can and swoon at the single most gorgeous piece of music I’ve heard this year: a stirring, life-affirming electro-pop anthem, where Powers’ mantra of “You’ll never die” deserves to be greeted with fist-pumps and high fives: in these hands, the sentiment is almost believable.
Overall, this ridiculously talented 23-year-old has assembled a glorious cacophony of sounds, with all manner of gorgeous noise crashing, gliding, soaring, surfing and dipping in and out of consciousness. Think an electro Sigur Ros sipping after-hours whiskeys with Antlers and Perfume Genius and you’re maybe part-way towards conceptualising these big, bruised, beautiful tracks.
Roll up, roll up for ‘Attic Doctor’ – a madcap merry-go-round of aural delights; get swept up in the cantering ‘Pelican Man’; marvel at the electronic gush of ‘Mute’; lose yourself in the strange sonic symphony of ‘Sleep Paralysis’; sway along with the astral waltz of ‘Daisyphobia’; fall into the fairytale embrace of ‘Third Distopia’.
One quibble: Powers’ vocals are buried too deep in the mix to understand what he’s singing about most of the time. It’s a shame, because when you can make them out, like on the stunning ‘Raspberry Cane’ with its refrain of “Everybody cares”, it’s like submerging yourself in a warm bath of contentment. Nonetheless, Wondrous Bughouse is a splendid, serrated noise.