Party: Youngblood

Party: Youngblood

Youngblood is a case study in the power of contrasts. The creative brainchild of Vancouver’s Alexis Young, the music of Youngblood is dreamy but insistent, a feather-soft pillow of lush sound sustained by propulsive electronic grooves. The siren-like voice at the centre of it all is fierce and sultry in equal measure—a bit Grace Jones, perhaps a trace of Nancy Sinatra, but always Youngblood.

Young has described her music as “what the ’60s thought the future would sound like”, and that’s as apt a description as any of songs that fuse timeless melodies with an aesthetic rooted firmly in the here and now. This is dream-pop to be sure, but a close listen reveals that Young is singing songs of obsession, self-destruction, and romantic catastrophe.