Neutral Milk Hotel’s ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’, Pavement’s ‘Slanted and Enchanted’, Dinosaur Jr.’s ‘You’re Living All Over Me’, Sonic Youth’s ‘Daydream Nation’, and Guided by Voices ‘Bee Thousand’. The quintessential list of indie classics churned out by every hipster with a Pitchfork subscription and his third cousin twice removed. It’s a crying shame bordering on total travesty that Bedhead’s 1994 debut release ‘WhatFunLifeWas’ isn’t another staple on this hip list. Reassuring and horrifying in equal measure this is one of those intimate albums that feel as though the band is playing just for you and maybe a few friends in an small enclosed room.
Essentially, the album builds in small spirals; the three guitarists patiently piling up fragile riffs supported by a singer who seems to have forgotten he’s singing for an audience, and a drummer overly fond of his cymbals. This may seem uninviting but in actuality there is an overwhelming beauty to the artless approach Bedhead have for their music. You feel everything is under control even when the music is sweeping to some crescendo or rising in sudden increased intensity. It’s all clean undistorted guitars and low key vocals that thematically touch upon loss and depression but with a sense of the profound. ‘WhatFunLifeWas’ is a modest album; slow indie rock with a hint of the epic, that draws upon it’s broodiness to create a serenely personal atmosphere. An unrecognised classic, this deserves your attention.
yeah, you should definitely go indepth because as soon as the word indie (or, to be fair, as soon as those albums you mentioned were listed) i was hooked
this sounds very very interesting, but you should talk about the songs and all that.
checkin this album out though, so i guess your review was a success
