Fergus Miller, a Melbourne, Australia native, operated out of his bedroom and performed every instrument himself in the style of a committed '90s indie rock devotee. He initiated Bandcamp releases in 2010 with the Other Things EP under the Splintered Oar name. The resulting lo-fi bedroom folk aesthetic suggested a more experimental Elliott Smith, while Miller's singing carried an unmistakable likeness to the late artist's angelic croon. Additional Splintered Oar EPs arrived in 2011 (Reverie 8, Beard of Bees, 7 Ribs), joined by an electronic set issued as Mexico under the title Freedom from Occult Practices. After purchasing a used four-track recorder, Miller renamed the project Bored Nothing and embraced a guitar-driven approach recalling noise bands like Sonic Youth and power poppers like Teenage Fanclub, while also weaving in jangle pop and shoegaze influences. This change prompted a surge of output on Bandcamp and hometown CD-Rs, plus a homemade cassette that collected the first three EPs. In mid-2012 he assembled a band for live shows, whose debut performance occurred in August. Around the same period Miller aligned with Spunk Records, which issued Bored Nothing in November; the album combined songs from prior releases with five new home-recorded tracks, the sole exceptions being guitar by Marcus Sellars on one cut and keyboard by Geoffrey Thorsen on another. Spunk and Cooperative Music brought the record to the U.S. in April 2013. The follow-up, Some Songs, was tracked in a studio yet preserved a slacker-y homemade atmosphere and appeared in late 2014.
