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Heaven Is a Junkyard

by Youth Lagoon

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Heaven Is a Junkyard via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      $27 USD or more 

     

  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Limited clear cassette in a recycled paper o-card

    Includes unlimited streaming of Heaven Is a Junkyard via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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    edition of 300  24 remaining
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      $9 USD  or more

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 5 Youth Lagoon releases available on Bandcamp and save 10%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Football, Heaven Is a Junkyard, Savage Hills Ballroom, Wondrous Bughouse, and The Year of Hibernation. , and , .

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  • Standard Ultra Clear Vinyl - 1st Pressing
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    The first pressing of Heaven Is a Junkyard standard edition is on Ultra Clear vinyl and placed in a gatefold jacket

    Includes unlimited streaming of Heaven Is a Junkyard via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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  • Clear Smoke Vinyl + Tote Bag Collection
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited to 100
    Heaven Is a Junkyard on Silver Smoke Vinyl in a gatefold jacket
    Jumbo Canvas Tote Bag. 20" x 15" x 5"

    Includes unlimited streaming of Heaven Is a Junkyard via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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  • Limited Clear Smoke Vinyl
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited to 500
    Heaven Is a Junkyard on Silver Smoke Vinyl in a gatefold jacket

    Includes unlimited streaming of Heaven Is a Junkyard via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
Rabbit 03:36
2.
Idaho Alien 03:23
Billy, come home. And Billy, don't stop. Daddy come home. And Daddy don't talk. Radio hides a shitty old cop. Maybe I'm high and maybe I'm not. There was sadness coming through to you. Wonder how I caught it... Wonder how it started... Angel in the garden, the razor was sharpened. **I don't remember how it happened. Blood filled up the clawfoot bath and I will fear no frontier. I don't remember how it happened. Blood filled up the clawfoot bath and I will fear no frontier. Billy, come home. And Billy's no punk. Daddy come home. And Daddy's on junk. Videotape, a fisherman's knot. Filling the tub and waiting for God. There was sadness in the water too. Wonder who will find me. Small stone in the quarry. No one ever told me the end of the story. ** Idaho alien, Idaho alien, Idaho alien, don't cry. Idaho alien, Idaho alien, Idaho alien, goodbye.
3.
Prizefighter 02:41
Hope had filled the sky at nighttime. Diamond in the ring. Don’t feed your mind. Maybe I had never pictured bad times. Brother in the drugstore falls behind. He’s got knuckles that no longer fit my eyes. Knuckles that a prizefighter can’t buy. **I got the world, so I’ll be fine. I got the sunshine to figure me out. I’m back to work. That’s over, Now all I want is fun. Yeah, my work ain’t hard, but it’s got to be done. Tommy left for war with no goodbye. I never got a chance to ask him why. But since Tommy always was a tough guy, I know it’s cuz he thought I’d see him cry. He had knuckles that could make the devil shy. Knuckles of a prizefighter held high. ** I got a war that I can’t fight. I got the sunshine to figure me out. I’m back to work. That’s over. Now all I want is fun. Yeah, my work ain’t hard, but it’s got to be done. **
4.
The Sling 03:33
5.
6.
Deep Red Sea 03:24
7.
8.
Mercury 04:13
9.
10.

about

In 2016, Trevor Powers shut the door on Youth Lagoon. “I felt like I was in a chokehold,” he says. “Even though it was my music, I lost my way. In a lot of ways, I lost myself.”

Stepping back from the alias, Powers found personal transformation at his home in Idaho and released experimental tapes under his own name (2018’s 'Mulberry Violence' and 2020’s 'Capricorn').

“My mind has always been a devil,” says Powers. “It tells me terrible things—like I’m worthless, ugly, or broken. It’s like a motel TV stuck on a channel that won’t shut off, with static and endless late-night ads and preachers screaming about the end of the world.”

In October 2021, something changed the channel.

After taking an over-the-counter medication, Powers had a drug reaction so severe it turned his stomach into a “non-stop geyser of acid,” coating his larynx and vocal cords for eight months. “I saw seven doctors and multiple specialists. I lost over thirty pounds. No one could help me,” says Powers. By Christmas, he could no longer speak, turning to text messages and a pen and paper as his only ways to communicate. “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to speak again, yet alone sing,” he says.

“It all felt symbolic in a way,” he adds. “I’d been swallowing fear all my life and now here it was coming back up. I used to think God watches people suffer. Now I know She suffers with you. That changed everything.”

The growth that followed that nightmare narrowed Powers’ focus. Rather than writing about the world at large, he started writing about home. “Family, neighbors, and grim reapers,” laughs Powers. “I’ve always written about far away things. That was my way of running from home. But the best material has been right in front of me this whole time in Idaho.”

With whispers of country, 'Heaven Is a Junkyard' is mutant Americana in a world of love, drugs, storytelling, and miracles—held together by Powers’ voice and an upright piano. “If a lyric wasn’t right, a song wasn’t right,” says Powers, who scrapped two-and-a-half albums worth of material because it “wasn’t honest.”

“'Heaven Is a Junkyard' is about all of us. It’s stories of brothers leaving for war, drunk fathers learning to hug, mothers falling in love, neighbors stealing mail, cowboys doing drugs, friends skipping school, me crying in the bathtub, dogs catching rabbits, and children playing in tall grass,” says Powers.

Throughout the album, he stitches together a lyrical style that feels both punk and western. “Daddy come home, and Daddy’s on junk,” Powers sings on "Idaho Alien"—nestled between a saloon-style piano and a rhythmic hiss that sounds like a baby monitor. "Prizefighter", the album’s third track, was written while watching a VHS of “Drugstore Cowboy.” Against a gauzy curtain of lap steel guitar and a CR78 drum machine, he explores the bond between two brothers, leaving it undefined what is fact and what is fiction. “Tommy left for war with no goodbye. I never got a chance to ask him why,” he sings.

"The Sling", a song Powers refers to as “the album’s core,” is a ghostly and naked piano ballad. We hear each line like a voyeur peeping through a crack in the wall. “On a lonely street, children still play. Families still eat,” he sings. 'Heaven Is a Junkyard' is a phrase Powers wrote down in his journal after watching a neighbor’s farmhouse catch fire. “I wasn’t even sure what those words meant at the time,” he says. “I’m not sure I still do.” But when the album’s title is heard at the end of "The Sling", it feels substantial.

“Heaven is a junkyard, and it’s my home,” sings Powers.

Recorded in six weeks with co-producer Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Adele, Gil Scott-Heron), 'Heaven Is a Junkyard' is a work of absolute devotion. A portrait of the God-haunted American West. And a reminder that there is always love in the tall grass.

“Youth Lagoon was never the chokehold,” he pauses.

“I was.”

credits

released June 9, 2023

All songs written and performed by Trevor Powers (aka Youth Lagoon).
Produced by Rodaidh McDonald and Trevor Powers.
Engineered and mixed by Rodaidh McDonald.
Mastered by Heba Kadry.
Piano, programming, vocals, synthesizer, and percussion by Trevor Powers.
Acoustic guitar by Dorothy Pox.
Bass, bass harmonica, and lap steel by Gabe Noel.
Drums by Sam KS.
Horns by Stella and Lonnie Saint.
Strings on The Sling arranged and performed by Rob Moose.
BG vocals on Trapeze Artist by Everyday People’s Choir.
Great Leader of Everyday People’s Choir : Chris Robbins.
Everyday People’s Choir is : Chris Robbins, Brontë Jane, Scotty Cantino, Jess Isaac, Ben Jones, Gabriel De Rosa, and Jayme Satery.
Co-production on Mercury and Little Devil from the Country by Jason Kingsland and Tim Friesen.
Cello on Mercury by Erica Ransbottom.
Drums on Mercury by Darren Stanley.
Strings on Helicopter Toy arranged and performed by Gabe Noel.
Guitar on Helicopter Toy by Rodaidh McDonald.
Photographs by Tyler T. Williams.
Graphic design by Collin Fletcher.

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