Youth Lagoon will perform live at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St. in Downtown Boise) at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18. This special performance is in celebration of Youth Lagoon’s new album Savage Hills Ballroom (out Sept. 22 on limited-edition gold vinyl and Sept. 25 on CD), and fans will have the opportunity to purchase the album before its official release date for one day only on Sept. 18! This is a LIMITED-CAPACITY EVENT. As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages.

VIP wristbands guaranteeing admission to the in-store are now available with preorder of Savage Hills Ballroom. If we sell out of wristbands, you can still purchase the album on Sept. 18 before or after the performance (9am-9pm).

ABOUT YOUTH LAGOON AND ‘SAVAGE HILLS BALLROOM’

Youth Lagoon – aka Boise native Trevor Powers – is releasing his third album, Savage Hills Ballroom, on Sept. 25 via Fat Possum Records (limited-edition gold vinyl comes out on Vinyl Tuesday, Sept. 22). Often perceived as a recluse (his first LP is called The Year of Hibernation, after all), on Savage Hills Ballroom Powers has fully opened himself to the world for the first time ever. The 10-track collection is his most ambitious, unguarded work to date, recorded in Bristol, UK and co-produced/mixed/engineered by Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Gravenhurst).

While touring on his last record, 2013’s Wondrous Bughouse, Powers got a call that one of his closest friends had unexpectedly passed away, forcing him to cancel the rest of the tour and head back to Idaho. He says, “That experience made me start viewing Youth Lagoon differently – it was a complete refocus for me.”

This sense of gilded rebirth floods the instrumentation on Savage Hills Ballroom – Power’s vocals are largely unadorned and his pop-conscious electronics reach new feats of precision. Meanwhile the lyrics explore darker territory. “Kerry” is the story of Powers’ revered uncle whose drug addiction led him to running from the law for most of his adult life, while “Highway Patrol Stun Gun” imagines Biblical end-times through the lens of the recent cases of police brutality.

NPR called Wondrous Bughouse “the most arresting headphones record you’ll hear all year,” but on Savage Hills Ballroom Powers has taken off the cans and made a record meant to communicate, rather than shut out. “I think I’ve had a lot of barriers in my life in general that I don’t let people past, and I’ve gotten really sick of all that,” he explains, “It’s too tiring trying to pretend you don’t have as many flaws as everyone else.”