Youth Lagoon announces ‘Rarely Do I Dream’
An artist deeply embedded in our personal and musical histories, Idaho-based songwriter and producer Trevor Powers—better known as Youth Lagoon—has announced his forthcoming album, Rarely Do I Dream, set for release on 21 February via Fat Possum. Alongside the announcement, Powers has shared the lead single, “Speed Freak,” accompanied by a video directed by longtime collaborator Tyler T. Williams.
The album draws heavily from a box of home videos Powers discovered in his parents’ basement—tangible fragments of childhood preserved on tape. These grainy snapshots of Easter egg hunts, backyard baseball games, and fleeting family moments became more than just memories; they evolved into sonic building blocks. Powers sampled audio from these tapes, folding their crackling intimacy into his compositions to create what he calls “musical cinematography.”
Reflecting on discovering the tapes, Powers recalls:
“When I took the tapes home and popped in the first one, it was my brother Bobby and I at the state fair. I was 4 years old choking on a corn dogs. If anything’s a summary of life, that is. What I was really consumed with was how much I could zoom in on my actual history,” says Powers. “I wanted to really make someone feel like they were inside my living room in 1993, but rearrange the furniture a bit. Something about combining that level of hyperreality with fairytales of devils and detectives weirdly felt like the truest way to immortalize these pieces of my family.”
Rooted in love and childhood memoir, Rarely Do I Dream expands Powers’ vision into what feels like an American gothic daydream, blending fairytale innocence with darker, more fractured realities. The album moves fluidly between moments of propulsive electronica and hazy, hallucinatory rock, anchored by Powers’ unmistakable voice—a steady, glowing presence amidst the chaos. Whether drifting through scenes of teenage misadventure or fleeting reflections on mortality, the record captures a world where small, tender moments sit alongside shadows of loss and transformation.
As Powers explains:
“The more I rewind the tapes of my life, the more I can hear the voice of my soul,” Powers says. “This isn’t nostalgia. Life’s much more messy than that. It’s a dedication to all the parts of who I was, who I am, and who I’m going to be.”
With its blend of personal memoir and mythic imagery, Rarely Do I Dream feels like both a love letter and an elegy—to family, to fleeting moments, and to the ever-changing self. It’s a sonic landscape where Powers’ personal journals and confessions blur into cinematic tales of drifters, shadowed backstreets, and fleeting glimpses of light through the fog.
The full tracklist for Rarely Do I Dream:
Neighborhood Scene
Speed Freak
Football
Gumshoe (Dracula From Arkansas)
Seersucker
Lucy Takes A Picture
Perfect World
My Beautiful Girl
Canary
Parking Lot
Saturday Cowboy Matinee
Home Movies (1989-1993)
Lead single “Speed Freak” leans into this dichotomy, delivering a pulsing, synth-heavy post-punk soundscape.
Powers describes the track as an attempt to confront mortality with openness:
“This song came from a thought I had of giving the angel of death a hug. We spend our whole lives running from this thing we can’t outrun. This body is temporary, but there is no death. Only transformation.”
The accompanying video for “Speed Freak”, directed by Tyler T. Williams, mirrors the song’s dark yet vibrant energy, with surreal visuals amplifying the track’s tension and release.
Save the date for Rarely Do I Dream, and watch the video for “Speed Freak”:
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