Back in 2011, I first discovered the gentle bedroom ballads of Trevor Powers, which were all incredibly engaging, especially when compared to most self produced, home-recorded artists. I immediately wanted to witness the beauty in person, but wasn’t able to find my way to any shows in my area. With the release of 2013’s Wondrous Bughouse, which saw Powers experiment with more lush production and more instruments, this need to see Youth Lagoon live was magnified. Luckily, Youth Lagoon made it out to Toronto on May 13th, and it was a bright and playful night of music, for Youth Lagoon’s set at least. The opener, Majical Cloudz also played a fantastic set, but hit the audience in a different way. Devon Welsh, the mind behind Majical Cloudz delivered an immediate dose of emotion into the hearts of the listeners during his set by use of low lighting and a captivating performance.
With no opening acts preceding Majical Cloudz set, Devon Welsh and Matthew Otto (who assists Welsh with production and performance) calmly made their way onto the stage. Little introduction was necessary; because once the warmth of Welsh’s voice was heard throughout the venue people began to draw closer and closer. The gentle production lining certain singles like “This is Magic” made it a perfect song to start their with, and I for one was hypnotized from the get-go. Gentle ballads like “This is Magic” quickly fed into the upbeat singles like “Childhood’s End”, which got any audience members that weren’t previously engaged closer to the action. Many times throughout their set, Welsh requested that the stage lights be dimmed, and whether it was simply to make him more comfortable on stage or not, it added to the dynamics of their performance without a doubt (hence the long shutter speeds = blurry photos). It forced those who were expecting a visual showcase of an artist to simply listen, something that should happen more often because this made for one of the most engaging and memorable sets that I can recall.
Majical Cloudz set focused mainly on tracks off the duo’s new LP Impersonator, meaning many of the audience members were unfamiliar with these songs. Often, this can lead to a set that is hard to connect with, but not in this case. In my head I imagined what it might have been like to see Beethoven premiere his “Eroica” symphony the first time, because I felt completely swept by the music debuted by Majical Cloudz on May 13th. With a perfect balance of emotionally engaging singles and louder singles like “Turns Turns Turns” I don’t think I blinked more than 10 times during their 40 minute set. What brought this feeling further is what Devon Welsh did for his final numbers. By first inviting any audience members onto the stage, Welsh proceeded to sit cross-legged on the stage while people huddled around. This added a sense of intimacy to the already engaging set as the duo continued their set with the crowd on stage. Welsh even performed a special acapella version of an older tune to an audience member that requested it via tweeting him earlier in the day. The final piece that the duo performed was “Bugs Don’t Buzz”, which took the synthetic bass stabs from the recording and made them more powerful, making for a fantastic ender. With such a strong performance, I was interested to see how Youth Lagoon was going to follow up.
As Youth Lagoon came out, an array of rainbow coloured sails garnished the stage, which fit well with the Wondrous Bughouse theme. Now with a full backing band (drummer, guitarist, bassist), Powers was easily able to recreate the density shown instrumentally on his latest album. While most of the groups set covered material off the new record, Powers still played a decent amount of singles off his first record The Year of Hibernation. For these numbers, the other member’s roles were smaller, but just as important for carrying out the entire song. In fact, many singles like “Seventeen” and “Cannons” were made more powerful through the use of a bigger band. Real drums backed Powers’ keys as opposed to only a drum sequencer, guitar often doubled for melodic leads, and bass was given more drive. A perfect example of this is the groups choice for the encore, “July” which began with Powers playing alone on stage and lead to a massive instrumental outburst once the other members returned to the stage. The material off of Wondrous Bughouse was also much louder as a result of this setup.
While the band format worked well for most of the group’s new material, certain singles like “Pelican Man” became almost too loud to compare with the album version. Not to say they weren’t enjoyable, because the noise only acted to help audience members dance more. Singles like “Attic Doctor” and “Dasiyphobia” were made even more playful through a unique mix of instruments. Both Trevor Powers and his drummer made use of drum sampling pads, which allowed them to get creative in a live setting. Given how expansive Youth Lagoon’s new record is compared to The Year of Hibernation, it seems as if these guys are used to experimenting and improvising, which is why some of this live experimentation worked so well. What continually shocked me about Trevor Powers’ equipment specifically was the fact that he made use of only two synthesizers. With the unique tones that present themselves on tracks like “Mute” I almost expected an array of keyboards, but were recreated simply through one synth, and backup from the groups guitarist.
Considering the emotional depth of Powers earlier work, his singing was not only confident and strong, but had much more drive than it does on the group’s studio recordings. This added to the loudness of the groups set, but not so much that it limited the enjoyment of the music, it only made it stronger. With impressive colourful visuals backing this well-knit group of musicians, it was also a visually pleasing set. Youth Lagoon have definitely grown both musically and emotionally since the release of their first record and this well-rounded performance is perfect proof. While Youth Lagoon’s bright and playful sound doesn’t lend itself perfectly to the enigmatic style of Majical Cloudz, both of these performances were completely amazing in their own ways.
All photos from May 13th: http://imgur.com/a/vQ8Ea#1
I recommend checking out both of these artists if you haven’t already!
Links:
LP: Majical Cloudz – Impersonator available from Crystal Math or Insound
LP’s: Buy Youth Lagoon’s releases through Fat Possum