When ambient musician Grouper formed shoegaze band Helen, Liz Harris (Grouper) brought her ear for how sound moves and immerses to the genre, embellishing her band with a sound engineer-like edge. It’s a quality apparent on ‘Vision Scraps,‘ the second single to be taken from Lightning Bug’s sophomore album ‘October Song.‘
Led by New York’s Audrey Kang along with friends Kevin Copeland and Logan Miley, in ‘Vision Scraps’ the trio have created a virulent, discordant soundscape that exists in a vacuum entirely of it’s own. Each instrument really brings something to the party, whether its the guttural-like fuzz of the guitar, the propulsion from the drums as we drive into the chorus or the ghostly vocals that exist on the periphery. The end of the chorus sees the guitar fleetingly unfurl into a beautiful riff, until the reverb pulls us back under its spell, the guitar squalling us out in the final flourish. ‘Vision Scraps’ is the sound of an artist fully aware of the power they wreak.
Speaking on the song, Kang said: “This song includes a quote from my mom: “Too much freedom’s a cage – privilege.” I wrote it a while ago – I think I was around 20 – while I was trying to figure out what kind of life I wanted for myself. Now I know that life is a feast of surprises and trying to map it out is like rolling the boulder up the hill.”
Balloon machine 