bedbug is the new project of Dylan Citron, formerly of Fairweather Currents, who is now based in Boston, MA. He put out a new album, buzzing like a bug in the snow, at the beginning of the month and fans of his previous project will be glad to know that the change in name doesn’t mean a complete change of direction.
The instrumental intro, ‘everyone humming together at once’, is a stuttering, hazy drone, which precedes ‘ant hill paradise’, a track which sees Citron’s vocals breaking through a layer of distortion. The lyrics have a strange and dream-like synthesic quality:
“all i can see, are puddles full of colors,
apartments full of roses
if it helps, i can leave for a bit
fragrances of jasmine isolate the air”
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‘avocado and bones’ begins with a teach-your-parakeet-to-talk recording which crackles below some gentle acoustic guitar, a clip that is strangely sweet. “Remember that your bird is an imitator and learns to talk by listening to what you say, not only words and sounds but inflections,” it informs us. “Extend your finger directly under his feet inside the cage until he becomes friendly and clings to it for a gentle ride outside”. The track eventually subsides into a gentle bedroom pop song with some synths and finger snaps and unsettling lyrics: “a ghoulish walk among the tree tops when black top tastes like tar / ‘lets take the scenic route for once’ you cry at the bizarre”. ‘parasite boy vampire bat’ is another soft acoustic track, the vocals so light and breathy as to be almost undecipherable, although not quite:
“we will go places
i won’t bite anymore
i’m sorry for wanting blood
i love the sound of color swirling all around”
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‘it felt like rain without the gloom’ is an instrumental interlude which sounds like feedback from a supercomputer channelled through an old church organ, or the electrical turmoil within heavy black storm clouds. ‘Fairy Lights’ is hushed and subdued, several layers of vocals somehow coming together to make something that sounds cohesive and whole, while ‘frogs and toads’ sounds warmer and more positive than the other tracks, the lingering sense of melancholy offset by the strummed guitar. “and i tell my friends i just wrote the prettiest poem,” he sings. “i tell all my friends ‘i just wrote the prettiest poem thats ever been wrote'”. Closer ‘i’ve still never seen Scorpio in the sky’ is another strange and distorted instrumental, mirroring the opening track and bookending the release rather nicely.
You can get buzzing like a bug in the snow as a name-your-price download via the bedbug Bandcamp page.