new album: Yung - "A Youthful Dream"

What are the dreams of a youth that never makes time to rest? For Yung frontman Mikkel Holm Silkjær, a Danish DIY figurehead who has left a catalogue of cassettes and self-produced songs in his wake, the goal seemed to be recording, and living, as fast as possible. Since he began to record music as a teenager (his father put him behind a drum set when he was 4), slow hasn’t been his preferred speed. Writing and performing songs filled with gritty guitar and driving rhythms that snap like a live wire, he’s been busy channelling the electric drive of youth, creating brief, flashing sonic portraits of his life in Aarhus, the country’s gritty, industrial second city.

That makes the music on the reflective A Youthful Dream, the debut album from Yung, such a revelation. Angst makes space for wisdom, youthful exuberance begins channelling road-tested experience, and a blur of basement shows and self-produced bromides becomes something more. DIY doesn’t mean unrefined, it just means personal. And at a point where inertia made way for introspection, Silkjær showcased a new degree of songwriting craft and and sonic experimentation, and a new perspective on everyday life and young adulthood.

“For me, Yung has always equalled total freedom,” says Mikkel. “I don’t want Yung to be a band that you can put certain labels on. I wish for it to be a project that can principally go in any given direction.

• “A band with a distinctive voice, and one well worth paying attention to over the next few months” – DIY
• "It’s overflowing with sounds, ideas, emotions — there’s an entire record store in these three minutes" - Stereogum