It must be tough to be from Idaho. Worse yet, it must be tough being a teenage musician in Idaho. While Boise is by far the biggest city in the state, it still only measures out at about a quarter of the size of San Antonio, Texas, itself only about one-seventh the size of New York City. So while there could very well be a thriving indie-music scene in the smallish city of Boise (lord knows Athens, Ga., is no metropolis), it’s not difficult to visualize Boise as isolated, lonely and insular.
Of course, this is the perfect conditions for bedroom pop. The Altered Zones-curated genre that has been gaining significant buzz in recent months (apparently chillwave is so mainstream) doesn’t really have a flag-bearer—that would be kind of an oxymoron, after all. But if the broad-stroked collective were to have a leader, the likelihood of 22-year-old Trevor Powers being elected to such a position might surprise you. The Idahoan, who goes by the effortlessly bedroom poppy name Youth Lagoon, only recently attained the qualifier “hip,” validated by seemingly everyone across the broadening blogosphere.
And while Powers’ resume is prohibitively short to be calling him the “crossover favorite” from a buzzy sub-genre, the standout track from his only album, The Year of Hibernation, seems more ambitious than effeminate, based more in activity than Morrissey-style feelings.
“Cannons,” the second track on Hibernation, isn’t the most post-rock Powers can get (that’d be “Montana”) or as stereotypically dreamy as he wants to be (“17”). Hell, it’s probably around the middle of the pack in terms of catchiness on the insanely accessible record. But “Cannons” is an outgrowing of the bedroom, not a comfortable place in it. There’s barely any introspection, and Powers even sets his perspective outside, albeit an insular version of outside (“Rolling up the windows in my ’96”). But most importantly, “Cannons” is mean. The hand-clappy backbeat and reverb smothered guitar indicate something effortless, a simple and effusive pop song about nothing more than a kid making music in his bedroom. The narrative, however, indicates otherwise. Halfway through the song, Powers takes up arms: “Get your cannons ready, light the wick. It will take more than an argument to change my mind.” Such active, “come at me, bro” language at first seems out of place on a track that features as many “oh-ah”s as verbal assaults, but over time, the rhyme works its way past whatever limited subject matter bedroom pop is supposed to be about.
http://youtu.be/9_g0TpTmIIk
While Powers will, and probably should, suggest that “Cannons” is nothing but an outpouring of his emotional state at the time of making the song, the tune’s “us-versus-them” last couplet speaks to the possibility of a sub-genre of kids discovering how to make music outside of the bedroom. We may be enjoying the genre as it develops into something tangible, but the first wave of bands, Youth Lagoon among them, will eventually advance past the gross tonnage of reverb most of them are currently obsessed with. When this becomes the case, “Cannons” could be a suitable model for first steps from under the blankets—use active feelings, and come out swinging. The lonely loser may be a fitting trope for now, but sooner or later, somebody’s got to take a side. Luckily, Youth Lagoon and “Cannons” are one step ahead of the pack, having armed themselves on the second song they ever created.
