Young Dreams – in concert at The Lido, Berlin – January 10, 2013 – RBB Berlin –
Norwegian Dream Pop collective Young Dreams in concert at The Lido in Berlin tonight, and recorded by RBB Berlin Radio on January 10, 2013.
One of founding groups of The New Bergen Wave, Young Dreams have made a name for themselves, these past few years.
Here’s what Pitchfork’s Lindsay Zoladz had to say about them in 2013:
Young Dreams are from Bergen– a city where, by their own admission “it rains 400 days a year”– but sonically, Between Places imagines a place where the sun shines bright. Their densely flourished yet weightless pocket symphonies owe an obvious debt to the Beach Boys, but certain elements of their sound also nod to more contemporary artists: the buoyant vocal harmonies on “Footprints” recall Grizzly Bear circa Veckatimest, while “First Days of Something” centers around a breezy riff that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Vampire Weekend song. Still, Between Places has a thematic unity that makes it something more pointed than a collection of influences. Whether about escaping the oppression of adolescence or your dreary local weather patterns, Young Dreams’ music exalts the transformative power of imagination. “I think it’s a reaction to the weather we have: freezing cold, no light,” the de facto frontman Matias Tellez said of their sun-dappled sound. “I think it’s just that, when things are miserable, you start dreaming of things that aren’t as miserable.”
Between Places is certainly an impressive sounding album. Its best songs, like “Footprints” and the eponymous “Young Dreams” achieve a difficult balance of feeling grand and baroque but never overcrowded; woodwinds, synthesizers and choral background singers add a fullness to the atmosphere but duck out of frame right at the moment when they’d be too much. The hooks are unabashedly epic, and the atmosphere is immersive but light. The album’s high point, “Fog of War”, sounds like a Killers song coming apart in the outer reaches of the stratosphere.
Young Dreams is the brainchild of Matias Tellez, the Bergen-born and based wunderkind who has been an ever present figure on the Norwegian music scene since the tender age of 14.
He first gained notoriety with a series of charming singles and two studio albums in his teens, before joining forces with a bunch of his friends from the scene around the legendary and now long gone Bergen pub Vamoose.
The result was Young Dreams, the perfect vehicle for Tellez’ startlingly mature and über melodic teenage symphonies. Shortly after releasing their first set of singles, the band were signed to Modular Recordings in 2011. Their 2013 debut album «Between Places» garnered international critical acclaim and the band also won a Norwegian Grammy for their efforts.
Hit the play button and enjoy. And while you’re at it – fall by their Bandcamp page.
