By John Faussemagne
On Trevor Powers’ second album back under the alias “Youth Lagoon” Rarely Do I Dream uses a series of tapes Powers found from his childhood to give an incredibly melancholic sense of nostalgia.
Released by Fat Possum Records on February 21st, Powers once again partnered with Rodaidh McDonald to help with production. McDonald helped with Heaven is a Junkyard, which saw Powers return to making music as Youth Lagoon in mid 2023. So, the wait between albums was incredibly short. So much so that when Football released at the beginning of 2024, I assumed a deluxe edition or possible B-sides album was on the way. More loose singles came throughout the year until January of this year when to everyone’s surprise, a song, along with an album announcement were posted to Powers’ Instagram account.
“In the fall of 2023, Powers discovered a shoebox filled with home videos in his parents basement.” These recordings he found from his early childhood would begin to lay the groundwork for what eventually became Rarely Do I Dream. The opening song starts with noise from a tape recorder. A piano fades in and is followed by the voice of Trevor’s father explaining the reasoning behind the 8 mm tape recorder.
“Their kids now can watch them growing up
When they were, when they were this age”
It’s an incredibly innocent moment that paves the way for the rest of the album. These quaint home recordings allow Powers to contrast childhood memories and innocence with the harsh realities of growing up creating a uniquely sad feeling of nostalgia.
On the earliest single for the album “Football,” Powers takes a concept of a simple failure and relates it to how the small mishaps make us who we are. On the chorus, Trevor sings: “Maybe you’re not the person who caught the football.” Later on the album a tape details Trevor’s father saying “Good hit Bobby [a brother of Trevor’s].” Maybe Bobby was the athletic one and Trevor wasn’t the one to catch a football, but that doesn’t mean his relationship with his father was any different because of it. Trevor still was loved by his father and the tapes throughout the project are a reminder to that, and a reminder to him.
These small tapes of Trevor’s father begin to mean more on “Seersucker” with the line “Pop OD’d in ‘99, I miss him every day.” Losing your father in your adolescence to drugs is something that would stay with someone the rest of their life. This song shows the intense sadness of growing up and how the tapes of his father can leave him longing for a past that no longer exists. A key theme on Heaven is a Junkyard was Powers own struggle with drugs, so to hear his father overdosing in his youth gives an even more heartbreaking meaning to many songs throughout that project as well as this one. The continued use of the phrase “We’re doing alright” sounds more like an aspiration than the truth. When something of that magnitude happens, you tell people you’re doing alright as a mechanism to not have to talk about it. In reality there is an intense loss that sometimes you don’t understand how to deal with. Instead you miss and remember times when you went fishing or playing in the backyard, silently hoping he will find his way back. The videotapes are a way for Trevor to fondly remember times when he was still able to catch a movie with his dad.
“Lucy Takes a Picture” which was released as a loose single now gains a more intense sadness being the following track. Hearing Powers’ own struggle with drug abuse while still having to digest the story of his father’s addiction moved me to tears, especially with the beautiful piano break near the end. It is a beautiful song born from moments of sadness.
Rarely Do I Dream, is a fitting follow up to one of the more beloved albums of the 2020s. It welcomes you into the childhood home of Trevor Powers and shows you scenes of innocence mixed with the reality of growing up. Nostalgia at times can be painful, wishing people were here with you to see the person you have become. The tapes used throughout this project allow the album to have a very unique feel mixing stories from Powers’ formative years both happy and sad with tape recordings showing nothing but childlike joy. It is a beautiful experience with incredible production, performances, and lyrics.
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