Project House, Leeds 8th March 2025
Live, Bdrmm are a very different prospect to studio recordings. Their latest album, ‘Microtonic’, is a warm hug of sound, combining electronics, shoegaze drift and dreamy movement. In person, the band is an enveloping narcotic hit of intense sound. Ramped to the max, ala Mogwai, the sound is purposely distorted and melded into a unified slab of sound with plenty of hanging feedback. It’s an assault on the ears, locking the listener into a ninety-minute fugue.
The band play in semi-darkness, apparently in their own worlds, rarely even looking at each other, yet the concentration is on welding the different components into one huge heavy object, as dense as a dark star. Brothers Ryan and Jordan Smith, bookending the stage, look so tuned in that their faces and bodies contort as they squeeze out impassioned moments. Between them, Joe Vickers, hidden in a hoody, is more restrained visually (but loud and ever-present sonically) and Conor Murray switches between drums and electronic rhythms. The resulting live sound is shoegaze meets prog meets electronica and drives some of the audience to dance, some to sway and others to gaze, rapt, pinioned by the volume and solidity of the sound.
As a newcomer, I struggle to pick out lyrics or memorable tunes and beats but that is irrelevant to the live experience, which is more about mood and live creation, watching the band wrack themselves in darkness to mould the air into big shapes. With two guitars creating a haze and a bass soup, the fuzz is deep, fused with electronics from all three of the frontline and leaves me fizzy and focused at the same time. This band’s live performances are more like a sculpture or painting than a run through of their songs.
Support band, Honesty, from Leeds laid down a semi-ambient, electronic creation with an engrossing double-screen video montage
