Youth Lagoon
The Year of Hibernation
The Year of Hibernation is the first album that made me want to rap since Ghostface Killah's Supreme Clientele, which is kind of weird considering that Youth Lagoon and in turn The Year of Hibernation couldn't be farther from a rap album if it tried. Still whenever I listen to it I find myself kicking the same freestyle raps I have been holding onto for the past 17 years of shower rapping and driving rapping.
My guess is that it has something to do with the drums. The drums on this album are just so exciting. Shifting yet steady the drum pattern awareness is keen and crisp. It helps that all of The Year of Hibernation's tracks slowly build and morph, swirling around creating a cacophony of delicious sounds that one can't help but get caught up in.
There is something definitively melancholy about Youth Lagoon's sound but I can't really put a finger on it since listening to it makes me so happy. I might just be a miserable bastard. Youth Lagoon have created/mastered the sound of nostalgia, not is say a Little Brother trying to sound like Tribe Called Quest sort of way, but actually capturing the mixed emotions of joy and longing that comes with it.
This is what makes The Year of Hibernation so compelling. It is concurrently throwing back to memories of past glories while remaining firmly planted in the here and now. I know that is vague as fuck, but so is the sound of Youth Lagoon, you cannot put a finger on it or capture it to dissect it. It is constantly moving and turning, twisting and diving. All you can say about it is that it is exceptional, in a way that very few artists ever are.
With The Year of Hibernation, Youth Lagoon have managed to become the proverbial sperm that reached the egg of relevancy, fighting off all the other sperms that are being touted and pushed by those agenda driven fools that find marketability and over-exposure to be the call of the day, and remaining a bit mysterious and hidden. Moving in the shadows waiting to make their move and jam their cute little sperm heads into that egg and make a zygote that eventually grows into a baby that we lift up over the rest of the heard like the fucking Lion King announcing that our savior has arrived. Hakuna Matata bitches.