Indie record label Bedroom Suck are celebrating their 8th birthday, so we’ve decided to raid the record collection to pick out our 8 BSR faves. Some of our most loved records of all time have come through Bedroom Suck, so here’s to many more years and many more amazing releases from these local lads.
Blank Realm – Grassed Inn
This writer’s first encounter with Blank Realm was in Brisbane 2014, the year that Grassed Inn was released. The love affair with this band hasn’t stopped since. Though the recordings always feel slower than their ecstatic live performances, the frenetic counterpoint of the quartet still feels a second away from total pandemonium. The sense of chaos that is instilled when drummer/vocalist Daniel Spencer asks “who’s falling down the stairs tonight?”, breeds the perfect environment for intoxicating (and intoxicated) dance times.
Terrible Truths – Self Titled
All the party times of Terrible Truths, wrapped up in a 9-track record? What a treat. It feels like Christmas every time this LP gets played. Their signature vocal interplay, the twangs and twists of Rani Rose’s guitar, the bouncing bass line hooks of Stacey Wilson, tied together with multi-tasking drummer and BSR label founder Joe Alexander. It’s addictive and arresting and certainly an album that requires a solid jive to.
Bitch Prefect – Big Time
The minimalist riffs of this splendid record has guitar pop at its cathartic best. Each discontented verse of the LP’s single, “Bad Decisions”, manages to strike them feels right on every regret string. The laments sung by Scott O’Hara, “Bad decisions, bad life decisions, every time,” at its heart is not self-loathing, but the convenience of committing the same mundanity again, and again, that’s both comforting and miserable. If self-aware complacency is the hallmark of our generation, Bitch Prefect have nailed it on this record big time.
Totally Mild – Down Time
The excitement of hearing singer Elizabeth Mitchell’s blissful falsettos for the first time is certainly something that has stuck in the mind. Partner it up with her innate ability to craft heavenly melodies and off-kilter lyrics, and it all speaks for itself really. It’s a damn fine record.
Kitchen’s Floor – Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress
Fuzzy, scuzzy and sullied, Kitchen’s Floor is a murky mess of an album with its absolution to low-fi. Measuring at 11 tracks long and barely 18 minutes in length, Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress gets its rousings all over and done with like a strip of hot wax being ripped off a hairy back. But behind all the drudgery is Matt Kennedy’s captivating brand of noise pop, its sad consciousness wrapped in catchy repetitious hooks.
Boomgates – Double Natural
Commenting on the supergroup talents of Boomgate’s members is a given (members of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Dick Diver, Twerps etc), but the songs that this album produced is indicative of the niceties that come with creating with buds you enjoy hanging out with. It’s a harmonious meld of jangly guitar pop and cruisy in Steph Hughes’ and Brendan Huntley’s gracious vocal complements.
Love of Diagrams – Blast
Living up to its name, Blast is an album of epic proportions. From its pounding bass openings, this fourth long player from Love of Diagrams is a non-stop scurry of spaced out melodies, tense feedback, and warped time changes. So far their final album in the repertoire, here’s to hoping that there’s still some more music in the making from this much-loved trio.
Scott & Charlene’s Wedding – Para Vista Social Club
A generation ago, our Australian sense of identity was embedded in terrible dinky-di-isms, taking our sense of self through the Hollywood eyes of Crocodile Dundee. Now, thanks to albums like Para Vista Social Club and Craig Dermody’s musings about Footscray and not wanting to eat sausages anymore, we can take an unashamed ownership of the real bits of Australiana.
For more on the ins and outs of Bedroom Suck Records, follow them on Facebook or buy all the swag off their website.