Youth Lagoon is the stage name of Trevor Powers, an American experimental dream pop artist from San Diego and Boise. Born in 1989, he is associated with dream pop, lo-fi, neo-psychedelia and psychedelic pop.

Background

Powers records under the Youth Lagoon name and is based in Idaho. His work centres on personal, introspective themes, with songs and albums often framed around anxiety, fear, vulnerability and the search for human connection.

Albums

Youth Lagoon has three studio albums that form a trilogy. The Year of Hibernation, the debut, deals with anxiety and psychological dysphoria. Wondrous Bughouse explores the relationship between physical and spiritual experience. Savage Hills Ballroom completes the trilogy and turns toward discomfort, imperfection and the surface appearances of suburban life in Idaho.

The Year of Hibernation

The first album presents a direct account of inner unease and mental strain, and establishes the project’s reflective style.

Wondrous Bughouse

The second album moves into more otherworldly territory, focusing on the meeting point between material reality and spiritual or dreamlike space.

Savage Hills Ballroom

The final album in the trilogy grows out of nocturnal walks through Idaho suburbs and is shaped in part by a personal bereavement while touring Europe. It also marks a musical and visual development for the project, and was made with co-producer and engineer Ali Chant in Toybox Studios, a basement studio in Bristol, UK.

Hiatus from the project

Powers ends the Youth Lagoon project in early 2016, describing the trilogy as a chapter rooted in isolation that he has outgrown. The decision leads him toward new creative directions beyond the Youth Lagoon name.