This is not the album you’d expect from Bdrmm, makers of the “modern-day shoegaze classic”. The Hull quartet have stepped away from the pedalboard and onto the dancefloor for their third record, sounding like they’ve stumbled out of the rave in the early morning hours, unsure of what’s real and what’s not. Welcome to the world of ‘Microtonic’.
From the get go, Bdrmm delight in defying expectation. On ‘Goit’, a Yorkshire word for a man-made stream, the band divert the listener away from their usual sound with skittering hi-hats and relentless techno kicks. The voice, too, shocks: it’s not usual vocalist Ryan Smith, but guest Syd Minsky-Sargeant (Working Men’s Club), who delivers a chilling performance narrating the aftermath of the pandemic: “Mortality, spasms, terror, death… there’s nothing left”.
Things only get weirder from there. ‘Clarkycat’ and its menacing, detuned melody sound as if Jamie xx and Bicep went on an acid trip gone wrong, while ‘The Noose’ features a gurgling acid bass straight out of the ’90s. The band haven’t entirely swapped guitars for synths, however: ‘Lake Disappointment’ and its rhythm is drum and bass-inspired, but the acoustic drum kit gives the track a more organic, rushing energy, while the title track melds the atmospheric sensibilities of ambient and shoegaze.
What’s so compelling about the record is the urgency of Smith’s writing this time round. So much destruction occurred during the pandemic, and ‘Microtonic’ seems to desire both the painful acknowledgement of that injustice and a peaceful way forward. ‘Snares’, a jerky future garage cut with grand, enveloping synths, reflects as such: “The thoughts we both shared together / Are all that we can rely on / In all the years spent together / We found out that it don’t matter.” That conflict appears to be internal, too, and it’s just as moving. The gorgeous ‘Infinity Peaking’ sees Smith croon: “Forgiving myself one more time, again / Staring out at the world I have created / So lost, so lost…”
If you look at a piano, you’ll find black and white keys that each represent a semitone, but you won’t find the microtones. They’re the sounds in between those keys; you’ll find them by bending a guitar string or detuning a synth. The magic of ‘Microtonic’ lies in that liminal space: the sonic moiré of shoegaze and dance, the emotional collage of despair and beauty, and now the home of a band who’ve architected a thrilling new territory.
