Q&A: bdrmm Opens Up About Their Creative Process
BITING JUBILANCE WOVEN INTO SONIC BREEZE - bdrmm creates a blanket of looming curiosity full of careful perturbation in their lyrics and a pulling solace through their sound.
The Hull five-piece released their debut album Bedroom in 2020 where their sonic elements that felt reminiscent to the attraction of 90s shoegaze and lo-fi noise bands generated what felt like an uproar in the shoegaze community. Everyone was listening to this album, everyone was talking about this album.
But it comes at no surprise. Bedroom was an album four years in the making – starting off as frontman Ryan Smith’s thoughts put into words and sounds that led to the first demo. They quickly grew into a five-piece and released singles like “Kare” that were a sweet balance of modern lo-fi and shoegaze that began to be revived with full power around the same time. With singles that created a sugared poignant of reflection through textural and glimmering sonic elements that pull you in tightly and live shows full of verve and authenticity, it led the band to Sonic Cathedral whose atmosphere of noise was a perfect fit for bdrmm.
Although they can be put into the genre of shoegaze, bdrmm has crafted their sound to be versatile in every little way that every song's sonic elements are unique to who bdrmm are.
Summer of 2020 was the first time I heard bdrmm. They had just released their debut album and it came around the time I was getting into the comfortability and curiosity of my music taste that followed me after months of self-realization, growth and heartbreak. That little trio was the perfect mix that let me take in the themes in the album: relationships, mental health and growing up.
Bedroom is a glimmering adventure that captures a sense of youth in every area. The album has a consistent sound but tempos shift easily allowing you to be engaged throughout it all. Most shoegaze albums can lull you into a daze, take you in your head and keep you there but this band wraps all around you in comfort and lets you decide where you want to go.
My love for bdrmm’s music was ignited that summer of the album release and I’ve revisited it more times than I’d like to admit and yet every time I listen to it I’ve been able to find new elements in the tracks to attach too, new parts of the lyrics to relate to and new feelings to uncover. Its themes and lyricism are why I think it’s a perfect soundtrack for your early twenties.
As the music curator for The Luna Collective, I go through our music submissions every day which lets me get a little heads up about new music coming out. So, when bdrmm released their latest single, “Port,” it was submitted to us and I was so excited to see their name pop up that I saved the song almost immediately. A very no-questions-asked moment.
Now, every time I do listen to something new from an artist/band who has impressed me immensely before – I get a little scared. It’s not a surprise when artists venture out into new elements or sounds but it’s not always easily taken in by listeners. bdrmm’s “Port” is definitely a new sound for them but they mastered it while keeping familiar sonic elements. It’s slow in the beginning – sonically reminding me of the band True Widow and projects from Kristina Esfandiari. Then, right in the middle that pulsing guitar comes in and introduces you to the elastic distorted-like noise before bringing in a spiraling and dramatic use of instrumentals that slowly take over you.
With “Port” as a little treat from the band this year, I was again influenced to revisit their entire discography and left me curious to know more about “Port” and Bedroom. (And, if the new single was an indication of new music on the way.)
Read below and get to know more about bdrmm, their sonic process and what albums they’d take to keep their sanity if they were stranded on a desert.
LUNA: You guys have been touring a lot lately. How does it feel to get back into the groove of live shows? What has been your favourite moment so far?
RYAN: Ah it’s been great mate. Lockdown really fucked me up, so it was wonderful to finally get back out on the road, playing shows. Not going to lie, it felt different to previous shows, I think it’s going to take us a while to fully get back in the swing of things, a year and a half stuck indoors really does something to you it seems. Latitude was definitely a highlight, playing to that many people was a real shock, a true imposter syndrome moment.
LUNA: I’d like to say that your debut LP, bedroom, has become a staple of what shoegaze/dream pop is now. Your sound has the classic elements of these genres but a specific sound as well that makes it unique to what the drum is. What experiences have helped you guys hone your sound?
JORDAN: I think all of us would agree that we never really had any idea of what we sounded like sonically, and it was only through our association with the wonderful Nat (Sonic Cathedral) that people started to identify us with shoegaze. I suppose trial and error is a major part of what we do, some songs have only been played once live and will never see the light of day until we run out of ideas on album six. We’ve been having a lot of fun experimenting with different sounds and instruments recently. I think keeping everyone on their toes adds an element of improvisation to the whole writing process that all of us have grown quite fond of…and asking Joe to pick up his bassoon is always a laugh.
LUNA: I know that the album has a lot of personal experiences behind the songs but everything is left to our own interpretation like if we relate, we relate or we can have our own interpretation which is an amazing thing to have in your music. Can you elaborate on the songwriting process?
RYAN: Thanks so much. Yeah, I guess the way I wrote was quite subjective to the listener because obviously, it is very personal to me, but also, I didn’t want to comment exactly on the events because even being honest has its limits, I just wanted to create something that appealed to everyone, I’m really glad that it came across that way too.
LUNA: Personally, I tend to feel a lot more through sound. Your instrumentals are something that stands out to me a lot and make me feel certain emotions. For example, the track ‘If…’ has a lot of angst but a sense of bittersweetness in it which I feel matches the lyrics well. Is creating a feeling through sound something you guys do with intention?
JORDAN: Yeah, absolutely. I suppose only one of us focuses on the lyrical content of the music so orchestrating a certain sound falls upon the rest of us – sometimes we prefer this more, hence the growing use of instrumental work. A lot of the music we work on tends to build from the ground up using ambient drones, or sometimes found sound. It’s nice to know that the music can just speak for itself sometimes.
RYAN: Oh yeah, I think the sound is possibly the most important part. I think you can get emotion over so much more sonically than you could with words, just because you don’t have the opportunity to alienate, music is for everyone. I am a huge fan of ambient music and film scores, even dipping my toe into classical now through the help of Mr Greenwood. I feel that one day we will release an album that is solely instrumental, hopefully many.
LUNA: Could you elaborate on how “Port” came to be?
RYAN: Honestly, I would love to give you an insight into the writing process, but all I can recall is that it was midnight, I took a bottle of wine to the shed in my back garden which I had converted into a studio, and when I came out at 3am, the demo was there. I was extremely proud of that one.
JORDAN: It’s a series of drones I had been working on independently after spending the remaining amount of my student loan on a Moog Sub37 – a great decision on my part. Ryan had written the track even before the recording of the first record and putting them together just intrinsically worked. I’d been listening to a lot of Trent Reznor’s soundtrack work whilst I was finishing my final project at university, so I guess it seeped into my subconscious during that period. The whole process isn’t necessarily a period of time we look back on with fondness, and I think that works to the song's advantage. It’s fuckin’ rancid, but so is the world I suppose.
LUNA: What have you guys been listening to lately?
RYAN: I’ve been absolutely obsessing over Vanishing Twin recently, I had the pleasure of seeing them support Jane Weaver lately which was unreal. I also saw Actress and Daniel Avery recently, and since then I’ve been hammering them both. Andy Stott also. A lot of 60’s Jazz and old film scores too, I recently read about a record label called ‘Trunk Records’ which used to release loads of instrumental tracks that were featured in old films, adverts and porn videos. It’s a real interesting wormhole to fall down.
JORDAN: I recently watched the documentary, Sisters with Transistors, which focuses on a series of incredible female musicians who helped formulate a lot of the experimental electronics we take for granted in contemporary music. From that I started listening to this album by Laurie Spiegel called The Expanding Universe, which has really helped point me in a direction regarding synthesis and its role within our own music. She also created a piece of software called Music Mouse, which is an algorithmic composition tool that I’ve been implementing in a few of the new tracks we’ve been recording.
LUNA: I like asking this question because it’s fun but also kinda hard. If you guys were stranded on a desert, what three records would you want to have with you to not go insane?
RYAN:
Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Volume 2
I recently have been reading on the creation of this record (thanks for the lend Jordan) in the 33 1/3 edition and reading it while listening to the record was an unreal listening experience, there is so much detail in the creation of what was essentially the reintroduction of ambient music to the world, I think you can find something new with every listen.
Portishead – Dummy
I think this could be my new favourite record. To me it’s a masterpiece.
Jon Hopkins – Late Night Tales Compilation
This was one of the first records I bought, and introduced me to so many new artists (Gold Panda, Nils Frahm, Evenings etc.) and every time I listen to it, it takes me back to a really nice place. I think I’d need that.
JORDAN: Aw, I’ve wanted to do Desert Island Discs for ages, so this is sorta a dream question for me.
Ege Bamyasi by CAN – I don’t think I’d ever tire of this record and think it’d make a friendly companion.
Music has the Right to Children by Boards of Canada – If we’re lost in the desert, we may as well get a bit mental with it.
In Rainbows by Radiohead - Pretty self-explanatory.
LUNA: Thank you so much for chatting with me! Is there anything we should expect from bdrmm for 2022?
JORDAN: Thanks for having us! It might be a stretch to say album 2, so…probably album 2?
RYAN: A second album.
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