It started in a bedroom in Brisbane ...

Shoegaze | Dreampop | Triphop | Vocoders | Melancholy | Ethereal | Hypnotic | Noise.

It started in a bedroom in Brisbane, when a muso with too many pedals, too much time, and a penchant for home recording set about doing something with the ideas he’d stockpiled over the years. Taking the dissonant, effected guitar of shoegaze as a starting point, vocoders, loops, noise, and found sounds were added to create a wall of sound best described as music on the hallucinogenic side of pop.

Eventually relocating to Melbourne, a 7” single, Head in the Ether / Scarlet Sometimes, surfaced in 2010, followed by the debut album Cochlear Kill the following year. The project migrated from the bedroom to the stage, with a live lineup playing around Melbourne in 2013–14, but then faded into hiatus just as shoegaze was coming into vogue.

After an eight-year absence, Cochlear Kill returned in 2023 with the single Ruminescent. This began a run of releases including the single Exits and the EP Songs in the Key of S—all mixed by Ben Etter (Maxïmo Park, Deerhunter, Cut Copy).

Cochlear Kill at a Irene's warehouse show in 2014.