“I don’t think the music is insular at all, but observational,” he counters. “Being insular comes from a very ignorant place, not wanting to learn and glean from other cultures or other people’s experiences. That’s not me. Really, with everything I create, it may stem from my own obsessions, but it’s always related to concepts and stories about the rest of the world. If I stopped observing, I would stop creating. So to answer the question, I’d say festivals give me a chance to observe more. Mostly drunk idiots.”
Powers has two albums under his belt, with 2001’s bare, hypnotic debut The Year Of Hibernation recently followed by the more expansive, metaphysical musings of Wondrous Bughouse. I queried whether the more psychedelic/drone feel of Wondrous Bughouse was something preconceived or if this shift away from the debut album’s sound was a more organic decision.
“I do plan a lot in advance,” says Powers. “But there are also times I walk around in the dark and trip over something. And sometimes what caused that stumble is intriguing. So I’d say Wondrous Bughouse was a mix of both. Dramatic planning and purposeful stumbling.”
The genesis of a Youth Lagoon album is a solo bedroom venture that then gets expanded in the studio with a full band who later join Powers on tour. The studio phase isn’t so much a collaborative process as a coordination of musicians to add some meat to the original compositions, though allowing some room for exploration is also key to the end result.
“I do need a lot of space when I’m working on anything, but mostly because I have serious ADD. I can’t even talk on the phone when anyone is around me because I get too distracted. I have a very particular vision, and some things I’m very stubborn on while other things have plenty of room for exploring. When I bring anyone into the studio with me it’s because I like their perception of music and want that uniqueness to bleed into the recording.”
Much of the appeal of The Year Of Hibernation was its ‘bedroom recording’ feel and Wondrous Bughouse had a boost in production values to create a cleaner, clearer sound. I ask Powers if there’s a limit to how well produced his music should be. “Absolutely not,” he says. “And The Year of Hibernation sounds the way it does to express a very particular aura, not because I was limited by recording equipment. Every element of a piece of music matters, most of all how you dress an album. Sometimes a record needs to be dressed in tattered rags, other times nude, other times in a tuxedo. Limiting yourself to dressing all your records in the same outfit would be spiritless and stale.”
The lyrics in Youth Lagoon songs are often fantastical and dream-like, sometimes the stuff of nightmares. I wonder what song is the most clearly influenced from Powers’ own real-life experiences ands ask him to pinpoint his most personal song. “I like opposites. Where reality meets surrealistic abstractions. I think everything I’ve made begins in a very personal place. But if I was to pick one, I’d probably say The Bath. It’s written about a terrifying place I was in and the decision I made to keep my life.”
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
