It's a beautiful summer day; the sun shining bright and the sky adorned with big fluffy clouds. Life just seems so happy and love seems so much sweeter, and what better way to complete it all than with tunes from Lacuna. 

Youthful, dreamy, and something straight out of a retro film, the Korean indie band never fails to paint a surreal, tranquil scene with their music. Blending shoegaze with the imagery of early 2000s fantasy movies, the four-piece has a way of making the mundane feel so blissful. 

Comprising Kyung Min (vocals, guitar), Min Hyuk (guitar), Kim Ho (bass), and Isaac (drums), Lacuna was formed in 2018 after everyone was drawn together by their passion for music. Since then, the band has released four EPs, each of which tells a vivid story of what it feels like to be young. 

Lacuna recently dropped their latest record Summer Tales, which narrate the adorable misadventures of a shy boy trying to profess his love. In true adolescent fashion, the EP is playful, humourous, and just a lot of fun.

Bandwagon caught up with Lacuna to talk about their musical beginnings, their inspirations, and what it was like working on Summer Tales. 

How did all of you meet and come together as a band?

The three of us – Kyung Min, Min Hyuk, and Isaac – came together through a Facebook group made up of local high school students, and became close friends after having a few jam sessions together.

Kyung Min was already recording demos by himself, and Kyung Min and Min Hyuk immediately started working on their own music as soon as they met. Kyung Min was constantly sending demos to Min Hyuk before they met Isaac. Later on, Isaac and Kyung Min met Ho in college, who joined our band as the bassist. That’s how Lacuna was formed!

How would you describe your sound and the influences behind it?

We're deeply influenced by '90s Britpop and shoegaze. Other than music, we get our ideas from fantasy elements shown in other cultural mediums such as films directed by Michel Gondry.

Lacuna is well known for its vivid storytelling, could you walk us through what your songwriting and production process looks like?

Normally it starts with Kyung Min just scribbling down lyrics and humming melodies in our studio. If he gets something right, he starts the sketching process right away by adding instruments. Then all of us get together in our studio to develop the demo into something more. We repeat the steps several times, just like quenching metal.

Congratulations on the release of ‘Summer Tales’! Can you tell us more about the EP and the story it tells? What inspired the love stories we hear on the record?

This time we wanted to tell a special love story. Our biggest source of ideas was films, the three most prominent being Call Me By Your Name, Shape of Water, and Punch-drunk Love.

The EP sees a new side to Lacuna, both lyrically and sonically. What inspired this new direction? Is this something we can expect more from you in the future?

We definitely went through a lot of contemplation when we were getting started on working on our new EP. We wanted to take a more 'rock-and-roll' direction with our music, and [Summer Tales] is our very first outcome. We look forward to creating an even more solid and captivating soundscape.

Summer Tales comes as your first release in over a year, did you feel any pressure or face any challenges coming out with new music after a long time? How did you overcome them?

We really enjoy playing together, so the process of working on the album was fun as always. However, due to this and that circumstance, it was a little difficult for us to wait for the release because the release was far behind the original schedule.

What are some new things you learned in the last year that helped while putting together ‘Summer Tales’?

The guitar sound of this album was self-recorded in our studio. Thanks to this, we were able to explore the sound as much as we wanted without any time constraints, so I think we'll try to use this way of recording in the future as well.

We also had a new attempt to make the bass sound into a synthesizer sound using effect pedals. It seems to be a great foundation for making experimental sounds in the future.

 Outside of music, what are some things you guys enjoy doing together?

We love to eat, travel, and hang out together! Yet these days we are quite busy, so we are only doing music.

What’s the best part of being in Lacuna?

We have a lot of things in common because we are of the same age. We also have similar personalities which make our teamwork better and we feel comfortable playing together.  

What can we look forward to you this year?

We have an EP release concert coming up really soon. We want to assure fans that we work really hard to improve our performances and skills to bring some good music into peoples' lives.

Listen to Lacuna's Summer Tales here.