Trevor Powers

Live in Portland September 29, 2018 | Mississippi Studios

You knew and loved Youth Lagoon, but forget that name and that name’s woe. Trevor Powers has moved on and he wants you to come with him. The Idahoan continues his quest for life’s answers and a new album shows us where he has been looking the past couple of years. Releasing this work under his own name is your first clue.

Mr. Powers is in, what I believe to be, his best form. Hyper aware of life’s contradictions and paradoxes, at that tender age of 29, when you start to finally figure things out, the poet did what so many other artists fail to do—get off the boat before it sinks. A handwritten letter to fans clarifies that Youth Lagoon was “a mental dungeon.” Releasing himself of these constraints has been the shift he, and we, all needed.

Like a broken mirror glued back together, the sounds on Mulberry Violence are very individual, yet belong together and remain functional. This is by far his best work since Year of Hibernation in 2011. A story written by Trevor himself titled, “The Karaoke Tapes” reminisces about mixtapes he used to make for his Uncle Terry every year as a kid. That eagerness he describes to share his music with his uncle is so endearing and evident in this new project that Mulberry Violence could have been one of those tapes.

Trevor Powers has seemingly endless motivation and inspiration from within. As he continues to work it out sonically, no matter what alias he releases it under, fans will continue to adore his astute sense of sound aesthetics.