“I think this is the best thing we've ever done, it's a proper step up.” It’s immediately clear that the Hull band have broken new ground on Microtonic. “The last album was essentially like a bridge between the two albums,” the band say of 2023’s I Don’t Know. “With that one we knew what we were trying to do but with this one we've fully cracked it.”

Bdrmm’s trademark sound hasn’t disappeared by any means, the band's more guitar-heavy beginnings a blueprint and influence on many of the groups breaking through in the here and now, a time when shoegaze is enjoying its strongest revival since its inception in the 80s, but those guitars are now incorporated into a broader, more expansive and varied sonic palette.

"Microtonic", recorded with long-term band collaborator Alex Greaves, features guest appearances from Working Men's Club and Olivesque of Nightbus.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: BDRMM aren't exactly afraid of pushing boundaries, and earned a lot more fans with their last LP 'Standard Tuning'. This time, the Hull foursome smash through a series of beautifully produced pieces, packed with industrial synths and woozy floating pads, shoegaze tentativeness and electronic bombast.

TRACK LISTING

1 Goit (featuring Working Men’s Club)
2 John On The Ceiling
3 Infinity Peaking
4 Snares
5 In The Electric Field (featuring Olivesque)
6 Microtonic
7 Clarkycat
8 Sat In The Heat
9 Lake Disappointment
10 The Noose

A special repress of the 2020 debut album by bdrmm which was hailed by The Guardian as a lockdown classic on its original release and ended up in Rough Trade’s top ten albums of the year. The release is part of Sonic Cathedral’s 20th anniversary celebrations which will also see the band playing through the album in full (alongside Ride, Pye Corner Audio and Moon Diagrams) at Hackney Church in London on October 12.

“A modern day shoegaze classic” – NME “The general roller coaster of being twenty-somethings in post-Brexit England who find themselves awash with a shimmering soundscape that recalls Oshin-era DIIV, Deerhunter’s Microcastle, or even The Cure at their most ambiently grandiose” – Under The Radar.

“At a time when we’re all looking for aural salvation from the chaotic inundation of all that is happening around us, bdrmm are the salve that eases the wounds of an archaic society, showing that anxieties are a natural flow of life” – Gigwise.

TRACK LISTING

1. Momo
2. Push/Pull
3. A Reason To Celebrate
4. Gush
5. Happy
6. (The Silence)
7. (Un)happy
8. If....
9. Is That What You Wanted To Hear?
10. Forget The Credits

Standard Tuning is the final song recorded at The Knave Studios, Leeds as part of the bdrmm's recording sessions for their acclaimed 2nd album "I don't Know" released last summer 2023. The 10" comes with a remix of album track "Alps" by Nathan Fake, an etched b-side and exclusive artwork by band member Jordan Smith.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A superbly atmospheric distillation of BDRMM's sound with a lot more propulsive electronics and airy shoegaze breeze. Backed with a lovely remix from Nathan Fake too! Nice.

TRACK LISTING

1. Standard Tuning
2. Alps (Nathan Fake Remix)

After the recent success of album "I Don't Know", bdrmm return with a 7” release of new track "Mud" and a remix of the recent album track “Be Careful”, which is reworked by fellow Hull outfit Fila Brazillia who have collaborated with everyone from Radiohead to Harold Budd, Black Uhuru, Twilight Singers, and The Orb. Recorded with long-time collaborator Alex Greaves (Working Men’s Club, Bo Ningen) during their album sessions at The Nave Studios in Leeds, “Mud” sees the band expanding further on their dynamic and sprawling sound, with oceanic production and atmospheric instrumentation, underpinned by the bands reverb heavy vocals.

While the world became socially distanced in 2020, Hull’s post-shoegaze, dream pop, heavy guitar effects quartet bdrmm made the kind of impact with their debut album any young band would dream about. Bedroom was hailed as “a heady, forward-thinking shoegaze distillation” by Clash magazine, the Guardian proclaimed “one of the underground hits of lockdown”, while NME awarded the album five solid stars and called Bedroom nothing less than “a modern day shoegaze classic.”

Now signed to Mogwai's Rock Action Records, the band return with I Don't Know, complete with their trademark effects-laden guitars and motorik Neu! grooves but now with added piano, strings, electronica, sampling and the occasional dance beat. Bdrmm fans will not be disappointed and the fans of Radiohead, Ride, Mogwai, The Cure that are yet to discover bdrmm would do well by blessing their ears with "I Don't Know".

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Following on from their shoegaze drenched debut LP, Hull's bdrmm are here for round 2 with their follow-up 'I Don't Know'. Whilst the shoegaze leanings are still ever-present ('Pulling Stitches' is as My Bloody Valentine the band have ever sounded), bdrmm also cover sonic ground that leans more towards the electronica and even Radiohead side of the post-rock spectrum. Transcendental, ethereal and dripping in textures, bdrmm once again show their one of the best bands around!

TRACK LISTING

1. Alps
2. Be Careful
3. It's Just A Bit Of Blood
4. We Fall Apart
5. Advertisement One
6. Hidden Cinema
7. Pulling Stitches
8. A Final Movement

bdrmm release a new EP, featuring their acclaimed recent single ‘Port’, alongside remixes by Daniel Avery, Working Men’s Club, A Place To Bury Strangers and more. The seven-track Port EP will be released digitally and on CD on April 8, with a limited-edition orange vinyl 12” version following later in the year. The EP is the Hull and Leeds-based band’s first major release since their debut album, Bedroom, which was hailed as a latter-day shoegaze classic when it came out in July 2020.

‘Port’, which was originally released as a single last October, marked a major step forward for the band. Sounding not unlike the Low of Double Negative or Hey What deconstructing The Temptations’ ‘I Know I’m Losing You’, it’s a much darker sounding song; its distorted drones and beats burst into life with frenzied guitar and howls of anguish. "It helped us consider the band in a much more fluid perspective,” says bassist and synth player Jordan Smith of the pivotal track. “Swapping instruments and redefining roles gave us time to spend working on new and more intriguing sonic ideas.”

This new experimental and more electronic approach was expanded as the standalone single release grew, almost accidentally, into a full EP, which features radical reworkings by Daniel Avery (a fearless, all guns blazing techno stomper); Working Men’s Club (New Order’s ‘Sub-Culture’ meets a long-lost early Warp Records classic); A Place To Bury Strangers (a feedback frenzy of total sonic annihilation); Tom Sharkett from Manchester krautpoppers W.H. Lung (DFA Records goes down to the death disco); Jonathan Snipes from LA-based experimental hip-hop trio Clipping (glitchy beats imploding into a wall of white noise); and Jordan himself, as Mouth Company, who brings proceedings to a close with a slow-mo trip-hop treatment.

“The idea originally stemmed from us joking about Daniel Avery remixing one of our tracks one day and we just kind of went from there,” explains singer Ryan Smith of the EP’s unusual genesis. “We’d arranged a remix swap with A Place To Bury Strangers and then somehow managed to gather all these other incredible remixes over the space of a few months, and it seemed ridiculous not to release them as one piece of work. It’s a real journey listening to them individually, but back-to-back it really is something.” He’s right, the seven tracks hang together perfectly, like the best kind of mixtape, despite each one being so different from the next. “I think the sparseness of the original mix gave a fair amount of versatility to whoever wanted to mess around with the stems,” adds Jordan. “I think that shows in the final EP – six completely idiosyncratic mixes that we all fell in love with.” “To have so many influential artists to us putting their own piece of DNA on what has become such an important track to us is so humbling,” gushes Ryan. “It’s brand new territory for us, and we just feel so lucky to have everybody involved.” The EP is being released ahead of bdrmm’s dates supporting shoegaze legends Ride in April and will be followed by their eagerly-awaited second album, which they are currently working on. “I am so excited to embrace the next chapter of bdrmm,” concludes Ryan. “It’s been a fucking tough ride, but one I never want to get off.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Superb band, brilliant song and LOOK at that list of remixers! Every single one is a wonderfully different take on the source material. The winner for me has to be the W.H. Lung remix by the superbly talented (and monolithically barnetted) Tom 'Sharky' Sharkett. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Port
2. Port (Working Men’s Club Remix)
3. Port (W.H. Lung - Tom Sharkett Remix)
4. Port (Daniel Avery Remix)
5. Port (A Place To Bury Strangers Remix)
6. Port (Jonathan Snipes Remix)
7. Port (Mouth Company Remix)

Hull/Leeds based five-piece bdrmm release their much anticipated debut Bedroom on July 3, via Sonic Cathedral. The 10-track album was recorded late last year at The Nave studio in Leeds by Alex Greaves (Working Mens Club, Bo Ningen) and mastered in Brooklyn by Heba Kadry (Slowdive, Beach House). It’s a hugely accomplished debut and a real step up both sonically and lyrically from their early singles, which were rounded up on last year’s If Not, When? EP. Musically, there are nods to The Cure’s Disintegration, Deerhunter and DIIV, while the band reference RIDE and Radiohead. There are also echoes of krautrock and post-punk, from The Chameleons to Protomartyr, plus the proto shoegaze of the Pale Saints’ The Comforts Of Madness, not least in the cross fading of some tracks, meaning the album is an almost seamless listen. As a result, Bedroom becomes an unexpected and unintentional concept album, running through the different stages of a break-up set against the backdrop of the ups and downs of your early twenties. “The subject matter spans mental health, alcohol abuse, unplanned pregnancy, drugs… basically every cliché topic that you could think of,” reveals frontman Ryan Smith. “But that doesn’t mean they ever stop being relevant. It’s a fucker growing up, but I’m lucky enough to have been able to project my feelings in the form of this band, surrounded by four of the best people I’ve ever met.”

And that band name, in case it needs explaining, is pronounced the same way as the album title. “I never thought I’d get to the stage where I would have to explain it so much,” says Ryan. “We have been pronounced as Boredom, Bdum and my old boss thought we were a ska band called Bad Riddim. We’re all sarcastic cunts, so Bedroom spelt correctly seemed like the perfect title.” He’s right. The perfect title for the perfect debut album.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: The hugely anticipated debut album from the Hull based five-piece led by Ryan Smith. Released on the ever reliable Sonic Cathedral, ‘Bedroom’ takes its cues from the early 90s shoegazing scene but magnifies it in the huge expanses of their widescreen sound. The effortlessly gorgeous instrumental “Momo” sets the scene as the guitars ripple around a taut rhythm section before the hypnotic opener cross fades into the glimmering introspection of “Push / Pull” with its Chameleons-esque chiming guitar chugs and soft-focus vocals of Smith.
Throughout the album the shimmering soundscape pulses along with hypnotic chiming guitars, doomy bass sounds, and dream-pop vocals, all perfectly illustrated on mid-album highlights such as “Gush” and “Happy”. The colossal “If…” dominates Side 2 with huge peaks of crunching fuzz riffs and euphoric vocals, before the album drifts out with the lilting mellowness of “Is That What You Wanted To Hear?” and album closer “Forget The Credits”.
Who knows where their next album will take them but with ‘Bedroom’ they’ve created a modern day shoegaze classic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Momo
2. Push/Pull
3. A Reason To Celebrate
4. Gush
5. Happy
6. (The Silence)
7. (Un)happy
8. If....
9. Is That What You Wanted To Hear?
10. Forget The Credits