SONIC REDUCER: BREAKING CONVENTIONS

Vasili Papathanasopoulos
Jun 11
18 min read

JUNE 2026

Photographs by Vasili Papathanasopoulos.

Ryleigh wears: Top, Fred Perry. Jacket, Artists Own. Jeans, Levi’s. Shoes, Converse. Lily wears: Top, Artists Own. Jeans, Ralph Lauren. Shoes, Solovair. Rings, Ace Stokoe. Cormac wears: Top, Artists Own. Jeans, Levi’s. Shoes, Doc Martens. Lachlan wears: Shirt, Artists Own. Jeans, Levi’s. Sunglasses, Jonathan Paul. Rings, Ace Stokoe. Shoes, Artists Own.

It’s been exactly a year since I first sat down with Sonic Reducer to discuss their sophomore EP, SQUEEZE. In the time since, the Canberra four-piece have rarely stood still. Between headline shows, festival appearances at SXSW Sydney and Spilt Milk to name a few, and countless kilometres spent traversing the country, the band have steadily evolved both on and off the stage. Now, as they prepare to release their third EP, Living Room, alongside their biggest Australian headline tour to date, that growth feels impossible to ignore. “I'd say over the past year we've definitely kind of come into our own a bit, in terms of writing and playing together,” reflects vocalist Cormac McKahey. The statement rings true throughout Living Room, a release that finds Sonic Reducer pushing beyond the scrappy indie-rock foundations that first defined them. Rather than setting into a familiar formula, the band have embraced experimentation, broadening their sonic palette and allowing themselves greater freedom in the creative process. “I think we've been kind of exploring new sounds, making sure that we're not confining ourselves to what we've been doing in the past,” he adds, describing a mindset that has encouraged risk-taking and artistic expansion. That sense of progression extends beyond the music itself. Recently stepping into the role of self-management, Sonic Reducer have taken greater control of their career - a transition that has accelerated their development in unexpected ways. “I think in a way it's kind of slightly aged us all,” laughs band member Lily Hanna. “We're definitely maturing. We're definitely more mature in that regard.” The shift became particularly evident during their recent run of shows supporting Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, their first tour operating entirely as a self-contained unit. The experience reinforced a newfound confidence and independence, with Hanna joking that the band now feel like “the adults in the room” - a telling reflection of a group that, over the past 12 months, has grown into both its sound and its sense of self.

That newfound confidence is perhaps most apparent in the sound of Living Room. Whilst SQUEEZE thrived on urgency and catharsis, Sonic Reducer’s forthcoming release embraces a broader emotional and sonic spectrum, trading rigid structures for curiosity and experimentation. Working alongside producer Tony Buchan, the band found themselves drawing from influences that had long existed beneath the surface but had yet to fully reveal themselves in their recorded work. "I think it was really exciting for us because musically we were able to kind of show off some of our other influences, says McKahey. “A lot of the stuff that we explored on SQUEEZE was definitely more kind of loud, angry, but we were able to get more into a more melodic side and show off more of our tastes around like new wave and The Cure, Joy Division, et cetera.” Yet the evolution heard across Living Room was never the result of a conscious reinvention. Instead, it emerged organically from a willingness to challenge old habits and follow ideas whoever the led. “I don't think we had a specific mindset to it, really. I think we kind of wanted to spread our wings a little bit,” says Lachlan Grinbergs. “'We can do something other than a kind of [a] loud, fast song.’” Buchan proved instrumental in facilitating that process, encouraging the band to step beyond their comfort zones and embrace ideas they may have otherwise dismissed. “He definitely pushed us and got the best out of us,” says Hanna. “He'd do something we'd be like 'sacrilegious, you can't do that to our record.' But then he would make it work and actually make it feel part of the song - and it would be sacrilegious to take it out.” That trust in experimentation is exemplified on Song For Stevan, where manipulated vocal samples become an unexpected centrepiece of the track. “It's just not something that we would really do usually,” recalls Ryleigh Hilton. “But I think it was one of those things that once it was added in and we took it away, it just wasn't the same - it wasn't special anymore.” The result is a collection of songs that feels more adventurous without sacrificing the bands identity, balancing immediacy with atmosphere and melody. Underpinning it all is the experience of their transformative year. “It was a new experience being away from home for so long altogether, and experiencing that altogether,” Grinbergs reflects. “It kind of put a real reflection into the way we were writing afterwards.” That period of collective growth and shared experience reverberates throughout Living Room, giving the EP a sense of perspective and maturity that marks a significant step forward.

As Living Room pushes Sonic Reducer further beyond the confines of their earlier work, it also raises an interesting question about how the band fits within Australia’s contemporary punk landscape. While the band are frequently associated with the country’s thriving punk scene, the sounds that define Living Room often stretch far beyond traditional genre expectations. There are traces of post-punk, indie rock, new wave and alternative music woven throughout the EP, creating a record that feels less concerned with genre boundaries than with emotional honesty. Yet despite their increasingly expansive sonic palette, Sonic Reducer continue to be viewed as a punk band; a reflection not necessarily of how they sound, but of the energy that underpins what they do. Whether it’s the urgency of their songwriting, the intensity of their live performances or their commitment to Australia’s DIY community, the band embody many of punks core principles without adhering to its traditional musical framework.

Ryleigh wears: Jacket, Stag. Jeans, Wrangler. Top, Artists Own. Lily wears: Shows, Solovair. Artists Own Pieces. Cormac wears: Top, Song for the Mute. Jeans, Artists Own. Shoes, Doc Martens. Lachlan wears: Top, Acne Studios. Jacket, Artists Own. Pants, Artists Own.

“It’s interesting,” says Hanna. “I feel it's a very particular thing for Australia and I guess for like the UK as well.” Pointing to bands like Fontaines D.C., Hanna notes that many artists continue to be viewed through a punk lens despite producing music that bears little sonic resemblance to the genres original blueprint. “If someone were to sit down with no understanding of Sonic Reducer, never having been to one of our gigs with no context of us as a band and to listen to our music - I guess a lot of people wouldn't necessarily label it as punk if you listen to like Rosebank or something,” she explains. “There's been this kind of punk expanded universe, if you will in that a lot of Australian artists are decidedly punk, but they're also like, you listen to their music and it's not similar necessarily sonically to The Ramones or to the Sex Pistols, but it's still decidedly punk somehow.” It’s an observation that feels particularly relevant to Sonic Reducer. On record, songs like Rosebank and Song for Stevan lean into melody, atmosphere and introspection. Yet they are delivered with the same intensity and communal spirit that has long defined punk music. The genre, in this context, becomes less about distorted guitars or breakneck tempos, and more about a shared attitude - one rooted in authenticity, connection and expression.

For Grinbergs, Australia’s geographical location has played a significant role in shaping that evolution. “You kind of think of punk and you think of either US punk or UK punk,” he says. “In Australia, we look at that and then first we kind of try and mirror it and then it just kind of, because of the distance of everything, brews in its own way.” The result is a distinctly Australian interpretation of punk - one less interested in preserving genre orthodoxy and more interested in capturing its spirit. That freedom has allowed bands to pull from a wider range of influences whilst still retaining the energy, immediacy and sense of community that drew them to punk in the first place. McKahey sees that creative openness as a natural consequence of time. “We're so far removed from the inception of these genres and subcultures that it makes more sense to explore variety within those sounds,” he says. While acknowledging that there is still plenty of exciting “by the books punk” being made, he argues that younger artists have little reason to remain confined by the rules established decades ago. “There's not really as much of a need to stick to one thing.” That philosophy sits at the heart of Living Room. Hanna points to the streaming era as another factor accelerating that evolution. “I think it's also streaming, it's one of the positive things I guess having very easy access to a massive library of music for everybody,” she says. “It means there is people who are younger than me who have listened to far more music than I like ever have.” In an age where discovering new genres is as simple as opening an app, artists are drawing from a broader pool of influences than ever before. “It's not like you have to go out and dig in crates all day to discover what shoegaze is anymore,” she declares. That accessibility has inevitably created more adventurous musicians, and Living Room feels like a direct product of that environment. It is an EP informed by a multitude of sounds and ideas, yet still grounded in the communal energy and emotional honestly that first connected the band to punk. In that sense, Sonic Reducer’s relationship with the genre feels emblematic of the wider Australian scene itself: less concerned with what punk sounds like, and more interested in what punk can become.

Atop its expanded sonic palette, Living Room is ultimately an EP preoccupied with transition. It captures Sonic Reducer at a moment where certainty feels increasingly elusive, documenting the complicated space between adolescence and adulthood, ambition and reality, comfort and change. While the bands previous releases often channeled youthful frustration outward, Living Room turns its gaze inward, interrogating what happens when the structures and identities that once felt stable begin to shift beneath your feet. The result is a collection of songs that wrestles with responsibility, morality and self-definition, all while acknowledging that growing up rarely provides the clarity we expect it to. Instead, the EP finds meaning in uncertainty itself. For Hanna, those themes emerged naturally from the bands lived experience over the past few years. “I think the thing of being on that like threshold of adulthood and adolescence and I think coping with the responsibilities that come with that” she explains before drawing a direct parallel to the bands own evolution. “It is also slightly a commentary on being in a band as well in that regard. I think there's a lot of parallels between growing up and also evolving as a band.” It’s a striking observation, and one that sits at the heart of Living Room. Of late, the band have found themselves navigating milestones that extend beyond the music itself. In many ways, the record reflects that process. The anxieties that accompany early adulthood mirror the realities of being an emerging band attempting to carve out a sustainable career. Both require faith in an uncertain future. Both demand a willingness to leave familiar territory behind.

Ryleigh wears: Top, Song for the Mute. Jacket, Levi’s. Jeans, Levi’s. Rings, Ace Stokoe. Shoes, Converse. Lily wears: Top, Artists Own. Pants, Song For The Mute. Rings, Ace Stokoe. Shoes, Solovair. Cormac wears: Top, Ben Sherman. Jacket, Artists Own. Jeans, Artists Own. Rings, Ace Stokoe and Artists Own. Shoes, Doc Martens. Lachlan wears: Singlet, Song for the Mute x Adidas. Jeans, Levi’s. Rings, Ace Stokoe. Sunglasses, Song For The Mute. Shoes, Artists Own.

That tension between familiarity and change gives Living Room much of its emotional weight. Throughout the record, home becomes a recurring idea, though not always in the literal sense. Instead, the EP explores what happens when the places, relationships and versions of yourself that once provided comfort begin to feel distant. “There’s the homesickness in the sense of being an adult and going away from what you've known as a child,” Hanna reflects. “But then there's also the homesickness of like, we're traveling continuously for the first time in most of our lives.” What emerges is a nuanced portrait of displacement. The band are not simply writing about missing home whilst on tour; they are grappling with the broader experience of leaving behind a period of life altogether. The comforts of adolescence, the certainty of routine and the identities formed within familiar environments become harder to hold onto as new responsibilities emerge. In that sense, homesickness becomes both a physical and emotional condition - a longing not only for a place, but for a version of yourself that no longer exists in quite the same way.

Yet despite the specificity of those experiences, Living Room never feels insular. As McKahey points out, “It's probably written as a kind of hyper specific thing from our point of view, but there's probably a lot of crossover in general.” That universal nature stems from the fact that the EP’s central questions are ones most people encounter at some stage in their lives. How do you move forward without knowing where you’re headed? How do you reconcile ambition with uncertainty? At what point do you realise you’ve outgrown a previous version of yourself? Sonic Reducer may be exploring those questions through the lens of life in a touring band, but the emotions underpinning them are far more widespread. Whether it’s leaving home, starting a career, navigating changing relationships or simply confronting adulthood for the first time, Living Room taps into a shared experience of exisiting in the spaces between change. Perhaps most tellingly, the band never attempt to resolve those tensions. There are no grand revelations waiting at the end of the EP, nor any definitive answers to the questions it raises. Hanna’s observation that the band exist somewhere between “a tiny little cover band” and “superstars” encapsulates the records broader perspective. It is an EP about occupying the in-between spaces of life, resisting the urge to define success, adulthood or identity in absolute terms. The uncertainty that permeates the songs is not presented as something to be feared or overcome, but as an inevitable part of growth. In documenting that experience with such honesty, Sonic Reducer have created their most emotionally resonate release to date - one that captures the strange, exhilarating and often uncomfortable reality of becoming.

If Living Room is a record about learning to exist within uncertainty, then its individual tracks serve as snapshots of the many emotions that emerge from that process. Across the EP, moments of frustration, homesickness, disillusionment and optimism sit side-by-side, reflecting the often contradictory experience of growing up. Much like the records central themes, the songs themselves frequently emerged from periods of transition and instability. Ideas that had lingered unfinished for years suddenly found purpose, while moments of creative exhaustion unexpectedly gave birth to some of the bands strongest material. In many ways, the creation of the songs mirrors the message of the EP itself: progress rarely arrives in a straight line.

Opening track I Know (In The End) embodies that spirit. Written midway through a tour, the song emerged during a period when the band were absorbing new experiences at a relentless pace. “That was one of the first songs in a streak of songs that we've written that came together super, super easy,” recalls McKahey. The ease with which the tracks materialised is perhaps unsurprising given the circumstances. After weeks of travel, performances and constant stimulation, the band found themselves creatively charged, with years-old ideas suddenly finding their place. Hilton reveals that the songs central riff actually pre-dated SQUEEZE, exisiting in isolation long before it became part of the EP. It wasn’t until the band found themselves in Paris that the idea finally unlocked. What began with carrying traces of the Pixies eventually evolved into something altogether different, embracing the more melodic and expansive approach that defines Living Room. Lyrically, the song channels a sense of exhaustion and emotional resignation, with McKahey describing it as the perspective of someone who has become jaded by a friendship or relationship. In the context of the record, it feels like one of its clearest moments of release - a song that captures the point where frustration gives way to acceptance.

Rings, Ace Stokoe.

That emotional tension resurfaces in Julien. Though here, it arrives wrapped in some of the EP’s most immediate and optimistic instrumentation. The song emerged during the bands Sydney writing sessions, a period that repeatedly appears throughout the records creation story. Interestingly, the band remember its origins somewhat differently. While Grinbergs recalls the track as a welcome burst of fun amidst an intensive writing period (“It felt like it came from a lot of fun, you know, like we were kind of stuck writing so much stuff that I felt like that one kind of just came out of like, 'we just need to do a fun song or something.’”) Hilton remembers a room full of frustration and creative roadblocks. The contrast feels fitting for a record so concerned with uncertainty. What ultimately became one of the EP’s most uplifting moments was born from a situation where very little seemed to be working. “'Let's just try and figure this out,’” Hilton remembers thinking, only for the song to quickly fall into place. Even its lyrics carry traces of that emotional state. McKahey wrote much of the EP under tighter time constraints than ever before, often disappearing into another room during sessions to write in solitary. For Julien, that pressure became part of the song itself. “The lyrics for Julien were born out of a bit of frustration. Maybe feeling a bit like kind of putting that just straight into the song, you know? I think there's a lyric, "I need to find a place to hide," and I'm sure I was just kind of feeling like that in that moment,” thus transforming immediate frustration into something cathartic. It serves as another reminder that Living Room is less interested in polished certainty than it is in documenting the messiness of lived experience.

Perhaps no song encapsulates the EP’s thematic core more directly than Rosebank. Born from a discarded baseline accidentally captured whilst the band were setting up equipment - “Rosebank was technically the first thing we did, but not really. When we were in the writing session, they were recording as we were setting up and getting levels right. I had just subconsciously plucked out that baseline,” says Hanna - the track emerged after the group had reached what felt like a complete creative dead end. “‘Fuck it, no ideas are coming out. Let's just base something around that,’” she recalls. The result became something she describes as “lowkey probably one of the best songs we've ever written.” Yet beneath its effortless construction lies some of the most explicit emotional content on the record. Written during a trip marked by illness, cramped living conditions and a seemingly endless run of setbacks, Rosebank channels the homesickness that lives at the heart of Living Room. The song speaks directly to the longing explored throughout the EP, not simply for home as a physical place, but for stability, familiarity and comfort. The circumstances surrounding its creation only reinforces that reading. “We were all super ill, and Lily split her head open the first night. It was just all going wrong,” McKahey says. Yet from that discomfort emerged one of the records most fully realised statements, proving that some of the EP’s strongest moments were born from its most challenging experiences. “I love Rosebank,” McKahey declares. It also represents one of the clearest examples of Sonic Reducer’s expanding influences, weaving elements of new wave and post-punk into their sound.

That same sense of instinctive creativity extends to All I’ve Ever Known. Unlike some of the records more deliberate experiments, the track emerged from a simple idea and rapidly evolved into its final form. Hanna arrived with the baseline, whilst Hilton recalls the songs defying characteristic becoming the interplay between guitar and bass, with both instruments effectively swapping roles between the verse and chorus. “I kind of essentially played the baseline in the verse and Lily's doing more of like an expressive kind of thing,” Hilton recalls. “Then we kind of switch in the chorus. I'm doing more of a guitar part and she's doing a bass part. That's all I really remember as the highlight of it.” The EP closes with Song for Stevan, a track considered by the band with an almost reverential affection. “The anthem,” Hanna immediately declares. Grinbergs describes it as “a real special one,” and their enthusiasm is understandable. Unlike many of the songs that emerged during concentrated writing sessions, Song for Stevan spent considerable time developing between trips, slowly taking shape as the band returned to it. Its creation reflects the collaborative spirit that underpins the entire EP. No single moment defines the song; rather, it was built piece-by-piece, with each new section naturally suggesting where the track should go next. “The pieces just kind of fell together and the parts we would go into just kind of made sense for it and it shaped out really nicely,” says Grinbergs. That sentiment could easily serve as a mission statement for Living Room as a whole. Across the five tracks, Sonic Reducer embrace uncertainty not as an obstacle, but as a creative tool; allowing accidents, frustrations, half-finished ideas and unexpected detours to shape the final result. In doing so, they have crafted a record that feels remarkably human - one that acknowledges that growth, whether personal or artistic, rarely follows a plan.

Rings, Ace Stokoe.

If Living Room documents a band embracing uncertainty, the writing process demands exactly the same thing. For the first time, Sonic Reducer found themselves abandoning their usual approach of arriving at the studio with fully realised songs, instead allowing ideas to develop in real time. “I think it showed us that we were capable of doing a lot of things that we didn't think we were capable of doing initially,” says Hanna. One of the biggest adjustments was learning to treat the studio as a creative space, rather than simply a place to record. Where previous records had been largely written before recording, Living Room saw the band become far more comfortable with reworking arrangements, rewriting lyrics and following ideas wherever they led. “We'd usually had a bit of a philosophy where the recording process is merely a recording process for us,” Hanna adds. “Like that's how we approached SKEWBALL for instance. Everything was written and really fleshed out and the recording process was merely a way of capturing that. I think that doing writing sessions and working in a way that's a bit more dynamic, where we all have to be open-minded, I think got us all to the point where it's like, 'okay, we can edit parts in the studio' and it's not scary and horrifying. We can change lines, we can add parts, we can add lyrics. Obviously that has improved us a lot as musicians, because we're now more open-minded when we're going into a kind of working process.” That adaptability was quickly put to the test. As Hilton points out, “three of the five songs were written on the spot in the studio for the most part.” Whilst fragments of ideas existed beforehand, much of the EP was built in the moment, requiring the band to trust their instincts and each other., “We just had to adapt to that form of writing,” Hilton explains.

Later this month, Sonic Reducer will take the EP on the road for a national headline tour, giving audiences the opportunity to experience these songs in the environment where the band have built much of their reputation. Over the years, the four-piece have established themselves as one of Australia’s most exciting emerging live acts, earning a following through sets defined by their relentless energy and explosive delivery. Now, their focus is on translating the growth present on Living Room onto the stage without losing the intensity that has become synonymous with a Sonic Reducer show. “There's a big difference between what our live set has previously been,” explains Grinbergs, “It's been kind of explosive and in your face.” Rather than simply inserting the new material into an existing setlist, the band have been carefully considering how these songs can reshape the flow of a performance. “I think we're trying to find a nice way to mesh between the two, and really showcase the EP on its own as well,” he says. Fans can expect the new material to sit alongside older favourites, with Grinbergs teasing that the band will also be revisiting “some secret stuff and some old stuff” as they piece together the tour set. As Hilton states; “Hills and valleys. You gotta have hills and valleys.”

The tour also serves as a reminder of the thing that inspired the band in the first place: playing live. The connection forged in a live setting remains central to their identity. Yet, as Hanna explains, the connection can sometimes be easy to lose sight of amid the logistics of being a working band. “It's very easy for us to think about live music as just work,” she says. “It's very much just like, 'okay, we're going to this show, we've gotta play it, this is at 7:00 PM and then we leave at 10,' you know? Having to do the budgets for it and everything.” It’s a perspective that speaks to the realities of independent touring, where spreadsheets, schedules and expenses often occupy as much mental space as the performance itself. What continues to cut through that routine, however, is the audience waiting on the other side. “I always get there and I'm surprised at the fact that it's like, 'oh, there is a bunch of people in front of me who know the words to the songs, who really connect with it,” Hanna says. “When you talk to them afterwards, they want to get merch and they want to actually talk about their experiences with the song.” For a record like Living Room, built around deeply personal experiences, those interactions become particularly significant. They transform what began as the bands own reflections into something shared, reinforcing one of the EP’s strongest themes: that even the most specific experiences often carry a broader sense of universality. “I think it’s very affirming,” adds McKahey. Hanna quickly agrees. “Yeah, it’s very affirming. It always surprises me.”

Ryleigh wears: Top, Fred Perry. Jacket, Artists Own. Jeans, Levi’s. Shoes, Converse. Lily wears: Top, Artists Own. Jacket, Reserve. Jeans, Ralph Lauren. Shoes, Solovair. Rings, Ace Stokoe. Cormac wears: Top, Jacket, Pierre Cardin. Artists Own. Jeans, Levi’s. Shoes, Doc Martens. Lachlan wears: Shirt, Artists Own. Jacket, Stag, Jeans, Levi’s. Sunglasses, Jonathan Paul. Rings, Ace Stokoe. Shoes, Artists Own.

That relationship between artist and audience is something the band clearly values, particularly as their profile continues to grow. “I think like the experiential aspect of live music is a very important one for us,” says Hanna. It is an observation that feels especially relevant in the context of Living Room. The live environment becomes the final piece of the puzzle, allowing listeners to attach their own memories and emotions to the music. For McKahey, that connection to live performance also speaks to the origins of Sonic Reducer itself. “As a band we started with just the soul intent of playing gigs,” he explains. “I don't think there was much of a thought of like, 'yeah, we wanna be doing this and that on album one, two, and three.' It was just like, 'no, we want to learn some songs, get up and play because that looks really fun.’” Whist the band have come far creatively, it has not diminished the importance of that original motivation. Instead, it has broadened their understanding of what the band can be. “As we've grown as musicians and as a band and playing with each other, I think we've kind of realised, 'oh wait, we can make really interesting stuff,’” he reflects. “There's a lot that can be born out of rehearsals and writing and stuff, just as much as playing live.” It is a fitting sentiment for a band standing at a new creative threshold. Living Room may showcase Sonic Reducer at their most ambitious and adventurous, but at its core remains the same spark that started it all: a group of friends who simply wanted to get on stage and play songs together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HwogLwAKBM