Youth Lagoon is the moniker of Idaho's Trevor Powers, who holed up last year to write a batch of songs in his bedroom, eventually bringing the results to a friend's home studio over the winter for full embellishment. The results of those sessions make up this, his debut record, which consistently impresses due in large part to the considered production, which creates the confined, dreamy atmospherics that act as a basis for Powers' material. Layered synthesisers and glockenspiel make up a key aspect of the record's sonic identity, a picture completed by the highly personal lyrics that create the record's conceptual backbone. The latter are admittedly occasionally difficult to pick out, but their indecipherability remains largely appealing; when odd phrases and lyrical snippets creep through the mix they become instantly memorable by virtue of their hazy surroundings. In much the same way that Daniel Johnston created a idiosyncratic yet hugely inviting musical universe in the 1980s, Powers uses the (admittedly more advanced) weapons at his disposal to devastating effect, as a distinctive canvas on which to showcase his songwriting credentials.
'July' and '17' act as the record's thematic focal points and in many ways typify its overall success. The former is by turns epic and intimate, beginning with Powers and his friends celebrating Independence Day by "smoking cigars and shouting at cars as they drive by" and generally wiling the time away. Their shared moment of friendship is communicated with great power over the track and evidently cuts close to the bone for Powers, whose quivering vocals amplify the song's earnest beauty as the narrative swings onwards towards an unsavoury break-up and its emotional fallout. Powers suffers from social anxiety, which may partly account for his muffled vocals, which are at times distorted in such a way that they achieve an ethereal quality, and certainly pays heed to the themes of loneliness and isolation that are elucidated over the record's duration.
On the aforementioned '17', Powers brings these themes to light most explicitly, the song's repeated coda ("When I was seventeen, my mother said to me, 'Don't stop imagining. The day that you do is the day that you die.'") hinting towards solace in the possibilities presented by music and the accompanied relief that he finds when shying away from reality. In interviews he has stated his desire to create music that's real and deep; by entwining his songs with such delicate emotion - again helped largely by the atmospherics that help to cushion the topics he explores - Powers creates a delicate dream world, where memories of childhood and the lost innocence that accompanies it co-exist. It's testament to his resolute focus that he's able to conjure this unique space from such modest starting blocks, rather than the glitz of a professional studio; the mixing and expert touches with crystalline sound hint towards the latter, as these songs tow the line between bold sentiment and minor detail wonderfully well.
Youth Lagoon's music has an oddly therapeutic quality that stretches onwards across 'Afternoon', which uses tambourine, skittering drum pads and sci-fi style melodic touches to achieve a rich tapestry of sound. The opener, 'Posters', utilises a melody not unlike those of music boxes designed to lull newborn babies to sleep, an appropriate signifier given the material that follows. Here, he demonstrates the perfectly cultivated formula for success that Powers repeats across the record's duration, as he begins with modest ingredients and gradually builds them towards a satisfying climax. As the song progresses, with Powers sharing his deepest insecurities ("I used to be outspoken, do anything for someone's attention, and when that changed I guess you thought that I was no longer me"), a mesmerising narrative unfurls that pairs up with the existing soundscape to stunning effect.
It's the ability to place such varied and vivid imagery within such a streamlined musical palette that's so impressive about Youth Lagoon's debut. Despite its relatively brief runtime - it consists of just eight sharply focused songs - Powers balances the core elements that make up his sound with admirable precision. His use of space is particularly spellbinding, lending his songs a peculiarly out-of-time quality; this results in a record where the explored themes resonate further on subsequent listens as they show great power to transport, and ultimately surround the listener. Despite its brevity then - and it does remain questionable whether the record's fundamental appeal would have stretched over a further clutch of songs with similar success - The Year of Hibernation benefits greatly by feeling so remarkably self-contained. Ultimately, it's the fantastic universe that Powers constructs that helps this material succeed; the relatively narrow boundaries he operates within help, rather than hinder, his songs' ascent towards such dazzlingly imaginative heights.