bed (JP)

*Tickets on sale friday 10:00*

There are few bands in the world more exciting than bed, the Japanese four-piece who have broken through the hegemony of 2020s guitar music to make their mark on the international post-punk scene. Hailing from Tokyo, bed are a brilliant, volatile contradiction: A group of crack musicians whose deft-but-counterintuitive blend of techno, pop, punk and classic rock has earned them a reputation as one of the best live bands in Japan. A motley crew of punk devotees and indie die-hards willing to break the mould, bed are smart and clear-headed: Four virtuosic renegades ready to spread their gung-ho, deliciously laissez-faire attitude to the world.

bed are unclassifiable by design: Their debut EP 円相 | Enso, set for release later this year, hops between soft-rock and techno anarchy with aplomb, making time to explore dance-punk and ragged-edged punk along the way. 

bed’s mission is one of constant exploration in the face of a world barrelling towards hegemony and sameness. “Playing rock and roll means you’re going to hell, right? Or have no future. […] Well, I don’t mind—maybe it’s the reason to live for me.”

Sinji started forming bed in the summer of 2021. He knew his new housemate, Une, was a vocalist who had also grown frustrated with the J-pop industry. Two more members completed the line-up: Sinji’s childhood friend, Shun-1 and the band’s guitarist Joneu was a university student with a strong interest in shoegaze and indie rock that Une found online.

There is little in the way of indie music in Japan, and practically no bands like bed, which seek to upend established rhythms and ideals. “I had never made a song with friends before bed,” says Sinji. “We just wanted to take in the atmosphere and people of Tokyo.” 

Despite their ethos of power to the people, bed are hardly an activist group: They make their music for their fans, already a devoted tribe in Tokyo, where their regular club night, bedroom, attracts large crowds. 円相 | Enso is an attempt to find that tribe beyond Japan, and to move beyond the indie influences that provided the bedrock of their early days.

In a way, though, bed are their own subculture: A scene of four who happen to be finding fans outside their own idiosyncratic clique. The beauty of 円相 | Enso is in its malleability: It’s a rock EP that drives hard into techno; a dance record played by seething punks. Whichever way you see it, bed are forging a new path that’s admirable and real. “It’s so hard to get this position in the industry,” says Sinji. “For Japanese artists… this is crazy.”