For my whole life I've dealt with extreme anxiety... Weird...bizarre things. Things that only I know. So I started writing these songs. Not just about my anxiety, but about my past and my present...I know that if I can be honest about what is inside my mind, there will be others that will be able to relate to it.
- Trevor Powers (Youth Lagoon)
It's easy to dismiss anything or anyone trying to represent the "youth culture" of today, especially since that tends to indicate some expression of an over-jaded, over-privileged, and unworthy-of-analysis mass culture rooted on some level in the "hipster" lifestyle. But sometimes, its worth noting that the magnitude of growing up is truthfully overwhelming. The older I get, the more thoughts keep me up at night, the more I try to figure out what's next in a time when the usual steps don't exist anymore and even actual adults don't know black from white. Adulthood is disappearing, or transforming, or something like that, and what's left in its place is this extended period of confusion and anxiety. You can call it something else if you're a scholar, or "the hardworking years" if you're old school/an optimist. Personally, most days I try to find the positive in the bigger room for growth and experimentation this leaves us, but some days (and nights) I'm just plain scared. It's not only about having a career or social security either. There are fears about who I'm going to be, who I want to be, whom I'm going to love, where I'm going to live, and what will make me happy, among others. I'm not alone. Sometime around the middle teenage years we realize this forest of unanswered questions awaits us; maybe we've known it all along. Either way, it's overwhelming, and not something to be scoffed at.
This sense of inundation is exactly what 22-year-old Trevor Powers tries to express via his musical project Youth Lagoon. Through songs that act as journal entries, Trevor is able to record the dancing thoughts that keep his heart racing and breath short, ideally for an audience that will be able to relate. Sure his music is semi the product of the aforementioned "youth" culture, in which social media create rockstars overnight and artists that have never played outside of their state are suddenly booked for national and international tours. Yes, his airy vocals and minimal, synthy-instrumentation are basically ubiquitous in indie-music these days. But what's different is the heart and mind behind his music, the lost child represented in Powers's vocal timbre, and the growing pains harnessed in the crescendos and tensions of his music. We can all relate.
The latest Youth Lagoon video for the single "Montana" just premiered. It is a beautiful depiction of man reliving memories of growing up in the Mid-West while he's searching for a certain ghost that hasn't stopped haunting him since childhood. Erie? Sure. Poignant? Yes. Worth watching? Definitely.
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