"I Wanted The Record To Feel Like An Odyssey" Clash Meets Lightning Bug
Exploring their beautiful new album...
*Lightning Bug's *excellent ‘A Color of the Sky’ came out last month, released via Fat Possum.
After spending time in the Catskills Mountains the bewitching shoegazers absorbed the natural world and translated it into their sound. The album sports a myriad of deep narratives developed by front woman Audrey Lang. Her connection with humankind and the aching yet joyous reminiscence of memories are all translated through her ethereal voice.
We spoke to the closely tied friends about the processes behind the album.
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*Congratulations on signing with Fat Possum! Are there any particular artists also on the label that you are into? Any possibilities of future collaborations?*
*Kevin:* Thanks very much! We're truly thrilled to be with them. They've been wonderful to us, and there are so SO many artists on Fat Possum we admire. Personally I'm a huge hill country blues fan so the origins of Fat Possum and Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and Mississippi Fred McDowell are pretty unreal. Not to mention the presence of Townes Van Zandt...
Also been a huge fan of Courtney Marie Andrews, she’s doing something really special and unique with different eras of nostalgia and we listen to her records pretty often. As for future collaborations we'll have to see if the feeling is mutual!
*What was it like recording the album in the beautiful landscape of the Catskills Mountains?*
*Logan:* Whether it be through mimicking the sounds of birdsong or capturing the feeling of a landscape through texture and song, nature has always played an important role in our music making process.
So, naturally, it was crucial for our recording space to reflect that! Recording in a beautiful, remote place brought a level of clarity, focus, and intimacy to the songs that I think would’ve otherwise been hard to achieve. The cottage we recorded in was quite small, but since it was nestled right in the mountains, it never gave me that claustrophobic feeling that I sometimes get when I spend too much time in a recording studio.
*What recording methods did you use?*
*Logan: *We tracked basics live in the living room of the cottage, using various blanket and pillow contraptions to provide a bit of isolation between the instruments. The acoustic sound of the cottage was quite nice, so we made sure to set up plenty of room mics. The main drum sound on 'The Return' actually comes from a mic that was lying on the floor of the kitchen.
From a production standpoint, we wanted to blur the lines between acoustic and electronic instrumentation so that everything had this organic, lived in quality. A lot of the electronic sounds were made to sound acoustic by reamping them and recording them in a physical space. Conversely, a lot of the cottage recordings were repurposed to create totally new instruments through a process I like to call “computer magic”.
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*Has the new dynamic with Dane Hagen and Vincent Puleo as full-time band members evolved your sound?*
*Kevin:* Absolutely. They were somehow the perfect people to hop into this group, because they were very sensitive to the emotional core of Lightning Bug, but have been able to interpret and translate and add their own personalities and nuance into the mix quite seamlessly. There's a wildness that is really exciting. As a band we feel more alive. It's a layer of complexity that I really don't think we've ever experienced in this group. Feels like our little living breathing creature has some added limbs now.
*How does this album differ from your previous albums?*
*Audrey:* I think we’ve stepped into the light a bit. I think older Lightning Bug stuff could feel almost too much in our own small world, almost claustrophobic. Now, we’re still in our own world, but it’s expanded, it’s opened up.
We’re a full band —Vincent and Dane are such expressive musicians and add so much life and sensitivity. Before, we’d track Kevin playing drums, bass, and lead guitar, and there’s a tightness to that but it’s less interesting. Diversity of voice and style makes for much more expansive music, I think.
*There is certainly a poetic style throughout your writing, do any writers exercise a strong influence on you?*
*Audrey:* If I didn’t read, I probably wouldn’t have any songs to write. I think literature has the strongest influence on my songwriting, more so than music itself. As for specific writers…it shifts, but Ursula K. Le Guin was a big one on this last record.
*Can you tell us more about your instantly recognisable album artwork?*
*Audrey: *Um, I think the secret is having no idea what I’m doing. I’m not a visual artist, so I’m always just playing around and usually what I come up with was absolutely not what I was going for in the beginning.
I make everything in this pretty obsolete program called Gimp. I really liked the doggy icon when I was younger so I’ve stuck with it through the years. It has a lot of like obscure effects that make no sense, and I enjoy messing around with them. I think the fact that I’m making all of our artwork in Gimp gives it a distinct and unique look.
*Is there a recurring narrative to ‘A Color of The Sky’?*
*Audrey: *There’s definitely a narrative there. I got the title 'A Color Of The Sky' from this short story called The Open Boat by Stephen Crane, which tells the story of a few shipwreck survivors who are struggling at sea on a shanty.
I wanted the record to feel like an odyssey. You’re setting out in 'The Return', which doesn’t refer to a literal return, but a return to yourself. 'Wings Of Desire' is the calm before the storm. In 'Song Of The Bell', the storm brews. It hits at 'I Lie Awake'. A sigh of relief in 'Reprise'. Clarity and light after the ordeal come at 'A Color Of The Sky', where you finally touch land. You might even see a rainbow. By 'The Flash', you’re contemplating your experience, but already ready for your next adventure.
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‘A Color of The Sky’ is out now.
Words:* Caitlin Sibthorpe*
Photography: *Ingmar Chen*