Patiently waiting for the free vinyl. (Photo Credit: Sam Gillette)
Thank goodness, chicken sandwiches aren’t the only thing New Yorkers see fit to line up for these days. This morning, about 15 people waited 45 minutes outside of Other Music, which was giving out free seven-inches of Youth Lagoon’s new single, “The Knower.” Fans of Trevor Powers’s psychedelic pop were whipped into a frenzy of anticipation after reading an announcement, yesterday, on his Facebook page. While the single was released today, Powers (aka Youth Lagoon) is waiting until Monday to announce details of the new album.
Finally, a just reward. (Photo Credit: Sam Gillette)
“It was like a treasure hunt,” said Other Music owner Josh Madell after he handed out the 10 singles — which took all of a minute. He explained that this is part of Youth Lagoon’s third album (the last one, in 2013, was Wondrous Bughouse) and that the vinyl includes a link to a website that shows the cover art for the new one, Savage Hills Ballroom: A Collection of 10 Songs by Youth Lagoon.
“I’m really into dreamy pop, psychedelic stuff,” said one of the new record owners, James Hooper. “I like Beach House’s stuff and [Youth Lagoon] is similar.”
Powers told us “The Knower” was one of the first songs he started working on for his new album. “To me it really embodies this aspect of our self-obsessed culture of ignoring our faults and failures,” he wrote in an email about the single. “I had so many parts of my personality that had gone purposely ignored for so long because they were too shitty to look at. It’s based around a lot of repetition and making parts of the track, such as the horn sections, sound like voices that are all realizing these aspects of our nature.”
For Powers, the vinyl release was strategic. “In this internet world, it has become increasingly impossible to create music in a tangible form before it hits the digital realm,” he wrote. “The goal in all of this is to battle that as much as possible.”
(Photo Credit: Sam Gillette)
The Idahoan has a NYC show coming up in the “next few months,” and has great love for this big, bad city.
“New York is my favorite city in the world,” he added. “Shows there are electric, and the fans are beautiful.”
On top of the free records, now he’s making us blush…