Bed Rugs… Ample opportunity

Live review: Bed Rugs @ The Macbeth, London

Published on June 18th, 2013 | Jonny Abrams

Golden generations, eh? It didn’t work out too well for the England football team over the last decade or so, so it remains to be seen how Belgium get on with the current crop of Fellaini, Hazard, Benteke, Lukaku, Mirallas and co. Even if they fail dismally, at least they’ll have a good soundtrack for it: Balthazar had already dazzled Rocksucker of late, so the emergence of Ample Play signings Bed Rugs has Rocksucker wondering what on Earth they’re putting in the water over there, and whether we can have some.

Ample Play, if you didn’t already know, is the Cornershop-run label that unearthed our no.2 album of 2012 in Matsuki Ayumu’s One Billion Year Record, and a steady flow of other psychedelic gems besides. Bed Rugs represent one of their more recent and most exciting discoveries, so they’re a choice act to headline Ample Play’s first fully-fledged live event, at the MacBeth in Hoxton.

The dippy, drippy, fuzzy psych-pop of last year’s debut LP 8th Cloud and this year’s Rapids EP is meticulously pulled off in this intimate live setting, even lent a grittier edge by the band’s energy and balls-out (not literally, of course) rock poses. If we hadn’t known better, and the band didn’t look so young, then we’d have been open to the suggestion that this was some great lost Elephant 6 band on the verge of making a triumphant comeback.

Timelessness was always a watchword of that particular collective, so it delights us to have witnessed Bed Rugs announcing their arrival in an arena in which they can never grow old. Last year, Ample Play introduced us to the Japanese Gruff Rhys, and now they’ve brought us the Belgian Olivia Tremor Control. What more could we ask for, apart that is from the stellar DJ set subsequently laid on by Cornershop’s Ben Ayers?

Well, a new Cornershop LP for starters, and we can happily confirm that one is indeed forthcoming. A great label is one thing, but it being run by one of our great (and still functioning) bands? Belgian national football team take note, because that’s a big old bowl of ‘winning’ right there.

Rapids EP is out now on Ample Play.

You can pre-order Bed Rugs on iTunes and on Amazon.

Rocksucker says: Four Quails out of Five!

a quail a quail a quail a quail

For more information, please visit the official Bed Rugs website.

Artists: bed rugs

About the Author

Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.