Independent Alternative Indie musician based in south east UK. I write, record, mix and master all of my music myself - follow me on IG for regular updates and regular music releases! Share with your friends and family if you want to hear something you haven't heard before. Visit grassmell.com for all about grassmell

V pleased to announce BACK IN LOVE CITY, our fifth child is OUT NOW 💊💊 https://thevaccines.ffm.to/bilc-album

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).

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.

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.”

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.

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

“I was.”

new music on the way 2024 - follow instagram.com/gavversclips for updates

Since his earliest self-produced CD-Rs, Philadelphia psych-pop master Kurt Vile has referred to himself as "Philly's Constant Hitmaker"—and while he gave himself that name with a sly wink, he was also nodding toward the songwriting prowess that would result in him becoming one of his home city's most celebrated rock artists. "I’m always thinking about catchy music, even though it’s fried, or sizzled, out," he says. "It's my own version of a classic thing—it's moving forward and backward at the same time." 
On his latest album, (watch my moves), Vile pulls his talents as a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer in unexpected directions—and the result is a vibrant, yet meditative album propelled by Vile's laid-back charm and curious spirit. Every lyric has been chiseled down into an aphorism, every bloom of distorted guitar or murmuring synth helping create that "fried" pop. "It's about songwriting. It's about lyrics. It's about being the master of all domains in the music," he says of his ninth album and first in partnership with a major label, Verve Records.
(watch my moves) comes from a period when Vile, whose touring and recording schedule during the 2010s was seemingly constant, stayed in one place. His mind was always swirling, though, puzzling out pointillistic lyrics, dreaming up spit-shined choruses, and checking in on other dimensions. "My favorite pastime these days is sitting drinking coffee in the morning post-breakfast by the window, reading and listening to Sun Ra, sun shining through the forest trees," says Vile. "In that moment, it's all the traveling I'll ever need. This record encapsulates all that—letting two years roll by and staying in my zone, traveling all the while in my brain, at the piano or in my guitar."

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