THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “For bdrmm, Microtonic is nothing short of a bold leap forward. Recorded with longtime collaborator Alex Greaves and featuring appearances by Sydney Minsky Sargeant of Working Men’s Club and Olivesque of Nightbus, the 10-track album finds the British shoegazers embracing a fuller spectrum of tones and atmospheres.
“I felt very constrained writing a certain type of music to fit the genre (we were known for), but something lifted and I felt more free to create what I want,” says singer-guitarist Ryan Smith. “And what I seem to be doing at the moment is a lot of electronic music — taking influence from different spans of electronica, from dance music to ambient and more experimental sources.”
Microtonic follows 2023’s I Don’t Know, an album that arrived to critical acclaim. bdrmm’s trademark sound hasn’t disappeared by any means. The band’s more guitar-heavy beginnings have been 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.
First single John On The Ceiling is a song the band had the foundations for early in their career, but one that represented a direction they maybe didn’t possess the full confidence or knowhow to follow at the time. The completion of the propulsive single was to lay the groundwork for how they approached the rest of Microtonic and set the precedent for their third record as whole.
“The themes surrounding John On The Ceiling are that of confusion and doubt,” says Smith. “When something ends and another starts, you lure yourself into a false sense of security that the mistakes made won’t happen again. This happens over and over until you are paralysed in limbo. Can people ever truly change?”
Following on from the pulsing, late-night atmosphere of John On The Ceiling and Infinity Peaking, the blistering electronics of the third single Lake Disappointment are the sound of a band not only subverting their sound but unafraid to bite back. Being asked to support Daniel Avery, along with a trip to Field Day for a group rave, were both instrumental moments in the band deciding to incorporate more dance music elements into a sound that had already been moving steadily towards across recent releases.
“Lake Disappointment is probably the most aggressive and exciting song we’ve conjured up,” Smith says. “I remember sending it to Alex (our producer) and I’ve never seen him so excited about a track. It was such a dream to work on. I feel like within all the melancholy of the record there is a lot of anger too. This is us getting that out, and saying ‘Fuck you’ to the wrongdoers.
“I will always hold such a great memory of shooting the video. We ventured to an abandoned warehouse in Sheffield and recruited an amazing production team and created our own dystopian TV shopping channel (under strong orders from our bosses at MicroTech). We must have been sick for a week after from being stood around in the cold for 12 hours in hospital gowns, but it was worth it. No pain, no gain (we’re still waiting for the gain).”
