Black Midi Archive

[blackmidiarchive]

Good noisy fun: black midi, at the Edinburgh International Festival, reviewed

If rock is dead, then London collective black midi make a decent case for the afterlife. On their 2019 debut album, Schlagenheim, and this year’s Cavalcade, the prevailing mood is of unruly scholarship. Think Franz Ferdinand managed by Colonel Kurtz; Talking Heads with Asbos. There’s not much you can happily whistle, but that isn’t really the point. It goes without saying that black midi have been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.

In the Big Top, they offered an unbroken hour of skronky, arrhythmic racket, a rickety symphony of tricky time signatures, jittery funk and lurching drama. Kaidi Akinnibi’s saxophone introduced elements of jazz fusion, while the occasional passages of debased lounge music — slinky chords, bossa nova beats, supper club croon — recalled the sophistication of Paddy McAloon, served with a serrated edge.

Mostly they were good noisy fun. When the dense blocks of sound threatened to become too impenetrable, they resorted to distraction tactics. Besuited singer Geordie Greep — who sounded like Scott Walker meets Anohni and dressed like a cad from a 1980s TV movie — mimicked a revving motorcycle and passed kazoos among the band.

Drummer Morgan Simpson entered and departed with a flying kung fu kick; more drummers should do this. At one point they all seemed to fall into a huckstering routine from Guys & Dolls. I laughed out loud several times. For a moment, I almost forgot how cold I was.

Source: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/good-noisy-fun-black-midi-at-the-edinburgh-international-festival-reviewed

[blackmidiarchive]

Inside the buzz of Black Midi

The young London band are making some of the country’s most esoteric new guitar music. Crack Magazine meets the group at Lewisham’s MFA Bowl

[undercitylightsmagazine]

Nervous Conditions @ The Windmill, 18.10.17

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[blackmidiarchive]

Frankfurter Allgemeine - BLACK MIDI CONCERT IN ZURICH - "You only play the guitar to torment your mother" 02/10/2019

Review of Mon Sept. 30 - Zurich, CH @ Bogen F

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Can these young English people save guitar rock? At the concert of the band Black Midi in Zurich it looks like this: After a lot of praise for the debut “Schlagenheim”, it is now also celebrated live.

All they were there. Those who had lived through the wild days of the Zurich punk scene and those who weren't even served hard alcohol at the bar. The scene intelligence, the high school students and the leather jacket types. Everyone was there and covered their ears - the old people from experience, the young even more - and they were all stunned by what was going on less than ten meters in front of their eyes.

Black Midi are the music press’s newest favorite student. Their album "Schlagenheim" was eagerly awaited and in June it was praised to every imaginable height. Some critics have expressed the hope that the four men, none of whom are older than 20, would help restore substance to rock that has been diluted with pop on both sides. That they would renew the old-fashioned genre. Yes, even that they would save guitar music as a whole. That this hope is more than justified and that the band will soon become the darling of a larger audience, the four Englishmen prove at concerts like this on Monday in Zurich.

Usually concerts on the first day of the week are a bit like the afternoon cinema screenings: they just happen and a few people always go there, but somehow listless. Often enough, the mood remains subdued on such occasions. But not at the beginning of the week in the small eatery with the pragmatic name Bogen F. It is located under the railway bridge that cuts a path into what was once Zurich's industrial district. In the past, ship engines were built and gear wheels were cast in the immediate vicinity, and the waste incineration plant is a stone's throw away. And a regional train still bumps over the viaduct every quarter of an hour and makes the walls below in the club tremble. This harsh, industrial environment turned out to be the perfect backdrop for the tough,

Only a short change in the intermission music announces the beginning of the concert. Then the band thunders off without a big hello - without waiting for applause or any other reception from the audience. The first drummed bars simply roll over everything that had been sound before, and are in turn drowned out by screeching and crackling guitars. Once again it was possible to understand what Roger Waters meant when he insinuated to a young musician on “Welcome to the Machine”: “You bought a guitar to punish your ma”.

Raw, brutal and headstrong

This instrument is pure violence when sadists like the inconspicuous Geordie Greep take it in hand. Then there is nothing more with happy songs and trallala, as other contemporaries practice. Black midi are raw, brutal and at the same time demanding and idiosyncratic. Although the music in the concert invites you to dance, it remains unpredictable, so that the dance turns out to be rather choppy. Because the pieces don't have a division into something like verses and refrains, more like mood swings. There is singing here and there, but obviously more for the sake of the song and its melody. The lyrics can hardly be understood (not even on the recordings), and the songs sometimes have cryptic names like “bmbmbm”, “952” or “Near DT, MI”.

Where the four Londoners get this harshness cannot be made out. Their astonishing precision is likely due to the fact that the four band members got to know each other at the famous "BRIT" music school and are trained instrumentalists. Adele, Leona Lewis, Amy Winehouse and other pop stars got their training in the London talent factory. In contrast to them, the rock quartet actually seems to have been in the courses. They constantly change on their album, but also during the concert, rhythm, phrasing and volume without giving the impression for a moment that they are improvising. The show is perfectly organized and implemented without blame or blame.

Black Midi therefore never seem cerebral. On the contrary, they embody exactly the kind of attitude that doesn't seem like an attitude (and of course it is). The band manages completely without announcements between their songs because they know that the song titles have nothing to do with the music anyway. They don't pretend they have a message to spread or that this evening of all places means something special to them. Black Midi are four people, just as many instruments can be seen on stage. No computers, no exaggerated guitar changes, no coughing and "thank you, thank you". Black Midi stand for pure rock music and are therefore celebrated in times of carefully produced mass phenomena. And when an hour has passed and the audience is really in the mood for a party, the evening comes to an abrupt end, there isn't even an encore. That would have been too predictable and ordinary for the band. “Shut up and play yer guitar” is how the wise Frank Zappa called this principle. And Black Midi do him all credit.

Source: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/pop/die-londoner-band-black-midi-in-zuerich-16412079.html

Web archive link: http://web.archive.org/web/20210827115219/https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/pop/die-londoner-band-black-midi-in-zuerich-16412079.html

[blackmidiarchive]

Black-Midi-Konzert in Zürich: Du spielst nur Gitarre, um deine Mutter zu quälen

Können diese jungen Engländer die Gitarrenrock retten? Beim Konzert der Band Black Midi in Zürich sieht das so aus: Nach viel Lob für das Debüt „Schlagenheim“ wir sie nun auch live gefeiert.

Review of Mon Sept. 30 - Zurich, CH @ Bogen F

[blackmidiarchive]

“BLACK MIDI, NEW ROAD” CHRISTMAS EXTRAVAGANZA! AT THE WINDMILL, BRIXTON (19/12/19) – LIVE REVIEW - Jimmy McCormac

‘SOLD OUT. Please don’t even ask’ is pasted on the ramshackle door of The Windmill. It is packed. Innumerable print outs of christmas songs litter the stage. Every ‘BM’ chord is written in bold. A nod to Black Midi’s ‘BmBmBm’. There is a real homeliness to the venue. Not at every gig do you see a man and his dog sitting at the bar.

Opening up, Wood plays a low key solo set. He’s sat on a bar stool with his guitar playing slowed down doo wop. He delivers lyrics about how he “stripped out his insides” telling someone “he loved them in front of Black Midi”. His legs are trembling along to his nervous shudder of a voice that goes in and out of a yodelling type falsetto. Although brief it was an intimate, theatrical moment of brilliance. The guest live.

Following a short break, an insane, progressive jazz jam is formed. The only few absences come from Ellery and Kelvin. A real shame. Especially when Kelvin was in the audience (only making a very brief appearance). Nevertheless the group still deliver. Sounding a bit like Miles Davis electric period mixed with King Crimson. Evans sax playing is in free form ‘Bitches Brew’ and ‘On The Corner’ style. To the point where he had to stop for a coughing fit. While Kershaw’s keys are very reminiscent to its predecessor, ‘In A Silent Way’. The other members play in tones not unalike John Mclaughlin, Johnny Sharrock and Greg Lake. The members jumped off each others energy. Wayne and Simpson play mind altering rush hour traffic drums. Both fighting bits of the streamer backdrop off their bodies. At one point Wood throws his guitar down to become a conductor. He raises his arms convulsively up and down. In response Simpson and Wayne deliver dynamic shifts in tempo.

The members interchange with some dangerous leaps from stage monitors to get their pint fix. One streamline jump from Simpson made me question if he trained for the olympics. The substituting members somehow carry the jam forward seamlessly. Their devoured bottles of becks are now smashed, lining the front row of the audience. The pint glasses from band members and audience alike are piled up shrinelike on the speakers.

Mid way through the set Greep leaps behind the drum kit while Wayne gets a pint. He grabs the mic and shouts “For one night and one night only. Geordie Greep on drums!” as if he is some kind of circus announcer. Wood makes a secondary announcement for those at the back. Greep delivers a collected drum solo alongside Simpson. This soon turns into a wild solo. While he does this he never removes his winter coat. Nuts.

In a third set the group play some festivities. A few eyebrow raisers in the mix. The band deliver their own version of Fontaines DC ‘Boys In The Better Land’. They replace ‘the better land’ with ‘the christmas hats’. I suppose this gives them an excuse to cover it. Vocals are switched between Wood and Greep as they commemorate their label mates. Speedy Wundergrounds Dan Carey stands next to me open mouthed. He quotes it as “fucking amazing”. Greep delivers bluesy licks teasing his later ‘Christmas Blues’. A piece where he puts on his best Robert Johnson impression. Another set highlight.

They play BCNR’s ‘Sunglasses’ and Black Midi’s ‘Ducter’, replacing the lyrics with ridiculous festive ones. ‘I am invincible in this christmas hat!” for example. Between a beer flying moshpit, a monitor convulses violently half way from the stage into the front row. It is saved milliseconds before a deafening floor smash by good samaritan audience members.

Covers of ‘Last Christmas’, ‘Mary’s Boy Child’, ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ and other festive classics are performed to finish the set. Picton takes the lead on many of these, ending up in a humorous falsetto on ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’. Hereby Morgan struggles to keep his composure. He’s in a fit of laughter. Greep starts an alienistic ramble. “Christmas, christmas. Geordie! It’s been said many times, many ways! Merry Christmas oo-ee. Black Midi. Black Country New Road. Sponsored by The Windmill”.

Following the set everyone converges for drinks. The band members and fans discuss everything from business deals to Scott Walker. A fan goes round with his polaroid camera taking pictures with everyone he meets, and many leave the venue in festive spirit.

3 pints later Picton sets up a drum machine and macbook, Greep a microphone. They introduce themselves as ‘DJ Dairy and MC Spritz’. The most bonkers freestyle is performed over popular instrumentals. “Lets go lets go! Change the beat yo” Greep shrieks. He goes on to ask the audience questions. “Who would win, Tyson Fury or Mahammid Ali?”. Without a chance to respond he answers ‘Mahammid Ali’. He takes fast shots of straight whiskey.

This is followed by inviting fans up to ‘freestyle’. Over these ‘freestyles’ remarks are made from the pair. Somewhat alike to DJs over dodgy bootleg records. ‘Lets Go Motherfucker. Lucas from Manchester’ , ‘Anthony Joshua! Anthony Joshua’. Picton is waving his hands in the air rollercoaster style and they both sing fragmented versions of Kanye West songs.

Later Wayne staggers on stage and him, Greep and Picton form a trio of out of tune drunk singing. The song is ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ by Elton John. Greep and Wayne share a microphone. They have their arms around each other and swing backwards and forwards. Following suit are May and Kershaw (now in the audience), their pints clutched between their hands.

In the early hours of the morning a fan has collapsed on a sofa in the back room needing his friends to lift him up. Another fan lights a cigarette inside the venue, getting in an argument with a woman at the bar. Then there’s me. I missed the last tube and ended up in an abandoned old bank. No further questions. I present to you a normal night at The Windmill.

Web archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210819205610/https://newsoundsmag.co.uk/2019/12/23/black-midi-new-road-christmas-extravaganza-at-the-windmill-brixton-19-12-19-review/

[blackmidiarchive]

"Black Midi, New Road" Christmas Extravaganza! at The Windmill, Brixton (19/12/19) - Live Review - New Sounds

‘SOLD OUT. Please don’t even ask’ is pasted on the ramshackle door of The Windmill. It is packed. Innumerable print outs of christmas songs litter the stage. Every ‘BM’ chord is written in bold. A nod to Black Midi’s ‘BmBmBm’. There is a real homeliness to the venue. Not at every gig do you see a man and his dog sitting at the bar. Opening up, Wood plays a low key solo set. He’s sat on a bar stool with […]