Youth Lagoon The Year of Hibernation

Although Youth Lagoon’s masterfully crafted debut was recorded by a barely 20-year-old Trevor Powers in his bedroom, kitchen and garage, it shares production values with seminal indie rock albums like Mercury Rev’s Deserter’s Songs and The Flaming Lips’ The Soft Bulletin. “Posters” opens with a whirlpool of ambient noise funneling under plodding bass and analog synthesizers before electric guitars and a drum machine get things going. In the following “Cannons”, Powers’ vulnerability is accented by slathering his vocals with so much reverb it sounds like he’s confessing his feelings from the depths of a wet cavern. He whistles alongside a keyboard in “Afternoon”, a lilting standout with dynamic layers building a kinetic composition; by the tune’s end it sounds like an oiled machine has run itself into the ground. But there’s more momentum throughout The Year of Hibernation; check out “July” with its gradual swells building like a set of hurricane waves or the faster-paced “Daydream”, which finds Powers slipping into a fantasy realm to escape the chronic anxiety that’s plagued him since childhood.