Youth Lagoon Announces New Album Rarely Do I Dream

Youth Lagoon is back again, releasing his fifth full-length album, Rarely Do I Dream, on February 21 via Fat Possum and gearing up for a sweeping tour across North America. Powers shared the news today alongside the ghostly, blown out lead single “Speed Freak.”

Rarely Do I Dream draws inspiration from post-punk, indie guitar fuzz and the overblown rhythms of ‘90’s industrial, but central to each track are Powers’s deeply personal and haunting vocal melodies. The concept for the new album began in the fall of 2023 when Powers discovered a box of home videos in his parent’s basement. Consumed by nostalgia, he began manipulating the videos into audio samples, reanimating his childhood into a distorted musical future. “I wanted to really make someone feel like they were inside my living room in 1993, but rearrange the furniture a bit. Something about combining that level of hyperreality with fairytales of devils and detectives weirdly felt like the truest way to immortalize these pieces of my family,” Powers said in a press release.

“Speed Freak” doubles down on these themes, creating a home for Powers’s poetic confessions within a thunder of strutting synth bass and grunge percussion that he called “like giving the angel of death a hug.” The track is only the latest in a string of singles from the Idaho producer and composer, however. Last year, he released “Football,” “My Beautiful Girl” and “Lucy Takes a Picture,” the latter of which we named the 11th-best song of 2024. All three singles are slated to appear on Rarely Do I Dream.

In July 2023, Paste’s Matt Mitchell sat down with Powers to discuss the revival of Youth Lagoon after an eight-year hiatus, as well as his momentous comeback LP, Heaven Is A Junkyard, which we named the 56th-best album of the 2020s so far. Read the full cover story here and check out the Rarely Do I Dream album art, tracklist and music video for “Speed Freak” below.

Rarely Do I Dream Artwork

Rarely Do I Dream Tracklist
1. Neighborhood Scene
2. Speed Freak
3. Football
4. Gumshoe (Dracula From Arkansas)
5. Seersucker
6. Lucy Takes A Picture
7. Perfect World
8. My Beautiful Girl
9. Canary
10. Parking Lot
11. Saturday Cowboy Matinee
12. Home Movies (1989-1993)

Youth Lagoon’s Upcoming Tour Dates
Thu. Mar. 27 – Spokane, WA @ District Bar @ Knitting Factory
Fri. Mar. 28 – Missoula, MT @ ZACC
Sat. Mar. 29 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Fest
Thu. Apr. 3 Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
Fri. Apr. 4 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
Sat. Apr. 5 – Victoria, BC @ Upstairs
Sun. Apr. 6 – Seattle, WA @ Crocodile
Tue. Apr. 8 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall
Wed. Apr. 9 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent
Thu. Apr. 10 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
Fri. Apr. 11 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress
Mon. Apr. 14 – San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
Tue. Apr. 15 – Austin, TX @ Mohawk
Wed. Apr. 16 – Dallas, TX @ Deep Ellum Art Co
Fri. Apr. 18 – Nashville, TN @ Exit/In
Sat. Apr. 19 – Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade (Altar)
Sun. Apr. 20 – Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
Mon. Apr. 21 – Washington, DC @ The Atlantis
Tue. Apr. 22 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry
Thu. Apr. 24 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw
Fri. Apr. 25 – Jersey City, NJ @ White Eagle Hall
Sat. Apr. 26 – New Haven, CT @ Space Ballroom
Sun. Apr. 27 – Boston, MA @ Middle East Downstairs
Tue. Apr. 29 – Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rossa
Thu. May 1 – Toronto, ON @ Axis
Fri. May 2 – Detroit, MI @ El Club
Sat. May 3 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
Sun. May 4 – Louisville, KY @ Whirling Tiger
Mon. May 5 – Indianapolis, IN @ Hi-Fi
Wed. May 7 – Chicago, IL @ Outset
Thu. May 8 – Milwaukee, WI @ Vivarium
Fri May 9 – Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon
Sat. May 10 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
Mon. May 12 – St. Louis, MO @ Atomic Cowboy
Tue. May 13 – Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck
Thu. May 15 – Denver, CO @ Marquis
Fri. May 16 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Block Party