Outgrowing their shoegaze inclinations, bdrmm have stepped into their own on their new album ‘Microtonic’. The record branches out into a kaleidoscopic landscape of electronic experimentation as they delve into introspections on living in a dystopia.
Opener ‘goit’ boasts a Working Men’s Club feature and nails the feeling of a growing age of anxiety, tense in electronic stuttering and chillingly paranoid synth melodies. Disillusionment is a dark whir across the record irrespective of pacing. It’s in the frantic tat of ‘Snares’, distressed bass of ‘Lake Disappointment’, but also entrenched in the slower folds of ‘Infinity Peaking’ and ‘In The Electric Field’, the latter of which incorporates an entrancing recitation from Olivesque.
Arriving at jaded closer ‘The Noose’ concludes a very human odyssey of hopelessness, dissociation and a resulting helplessness, interestingly expressed through an electronica programmed lens. ‘Microtonic’ doesn’t put bdrmm’s established sonic haze-driven sound to bed completely, it instead utilises standout elements of their existing catalogue. Dreamy atmospheres, softly embedded vocals and swirling, hypnotic rhythms.
With those seeds sown, ‘Microtonic’ is not just the soundtrack of a rattling dance towards doomsday, but a eureka moment for bdrmm in which they’ve fallen into the vast potential of their musicianship.
8/10
Words: Kayla Sandiford
Related: “It’s A Different Kind Of Euphoria” bdrmm Interviewed
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