Atiba Jefferson
Improvisation was always key to black midi, right down to the news of their hiatus. “black midi was an interesting band that’s indefinitely over” Geordie Greep wrote in a comment on Instagram Live this week, a message that was screencapped and shared by the experimental rock group’s passionate and extremely online fanbase. Greep’s bandmate, Cameron Picton, wrote and then deleted a subsequent post confirming that Greep’s announcement was true but unplanned (“blindsided as everyone else last night but maybe in a different way”). The band’s management later came through with a more traditional announcement, telling The Quietus that the group have “agreed to have a break and do some solo work, with the understanding the black midi door be left open.”
black midi formed in 2017 when Greep, Picton, drummer Morgan Simpson, and guitarist Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin were studying at the Brit School in London. The performing arts college is renowned for producing artists such as Amy Winehouse and Adele, but black midi’s mix of prog, jazz, classical, and post-hardcore was unlikely to position them as household names like some of their fellow alumni. Starting out playing live at the Windmill in Brixton, the band were soon picked up by producer Dan Carey and signed to Rough Trade, who released all three of their three studio albums.
Their 2019 debut Schlagenheim was recorded with Carey and aided by hours-long jams that spurred the creative process. black midi emerged amid a boom period for British and Irish guitar bands and Carey’s previous work with artists such as Fontaines DC and Squid suggested they would be next off the conveyor belt of post-punk NME darlings. However, Schlagenheim defied such easy pigeon-holing. It’s an album of thrilling excitement and endless imagination, one that positioned them as both proud virtuosos and shit-post jokers with an eye for the absurd. The idea that the band behind “Western,” an eight-minute suite featuring a cameo from “a pink caterpillar with six anorexic children” would confine themselves to being the future of indie rock was patently absurd.
Theatricality and an unabashedly ostentatious streak made listening to black midi a divisive experience. In an age where some band’s biggest aspiration seems to be to fit neatly into an algorithmic playlist, black midi stood out with their brazen embrace of pomp and grandeur. For those who balk at such exhibitionist tendencies, comedian Brian Limond’s hilariously dismissive reaction probably sums it up best. Their loosely-structured live shows added a vital dimension to the black midi universe, too. It was where drummer Simpson, a prodigious talent in a band renowned for their musical talent, really stood out. At times impenetrable, at others playful; black midi were a band as comfortable with bringing free jazz to Boiler Room they were slipping Oasis riffs into their songs as easter eggs for YouTube obsessives.
The band leaned into the overwhelming nature of their sound on their second album, 2019’s Cavalcade. Like all of their albums it came with artwork by David Rudnick whose intricate collages reflect the music’s enticing sense of chaos. On Cavalcade, Greep and Picton wrote vividly about a hypnotic world of unique characters from anteaters and diamond mine cadavers to cabaret singer Marlene Dietrich. Listening to black midi has always felt like leaving reality, even if the destination was a palpably worse one. Maximalist album opener “John L,” perhaps the band’s most clear homage to King Crimson, the prog rock giants who acted as their biggest influence, told the tale of a cult leader who “breeds men who yearn for their own bloody glory.” As with any prog rock fantasy, the whole thing teetered delicately on the edge of utter preposterousness.
In 2022 black midi released what may now prove to be their final album. If Cavalcade was a drama, Hellfire is like an epic action film," Greep said of the band’s third album, which represented their most coordinated and studied work while maintaining a writerly eye for place and character. Its standout song, “Welcome To Hell,” follows a soldier on shore leave in a picturesque coastal town. The idyllic vision of peace is soon shattered by reality, however, as motorcycles, illicit gambling, and mandatory brute force take over. Greep embodies the role of a military commander ushering his men into a night of iniquity and squalor. “Experience the red rooms, the green tables, the souvenirs,” he barks over this post-punk cabaret. “Make memories, haunting or fabled.” Dense, ridiculous, thrilling, and close to collapse, it feels, in many ways, like the archetypal black midi song.
Whatever the future holds (both Greep and Picton have already shared early details of solo work) they leave an impressive footprint. Passionate and uncompromising, they arrived with a broad vision of what a guitar band could be. Drawing upon their youth, creativity, and countless hours spent jamming, they were able to build a universe of characters and ideas while also acknowledging that it’s inherently funny to harbor such epic ambition.
Speaking before the release of Hellfire, Greep spelled out what drives such creativity, saying simply. “there's no point doing the same thing over and over again." Perhaps he was wise to the fact that never repeating yourself leads to bands going their separate ways and that this moment was inevitable. Or, just as likely, he knew nobody had ever written about a boxing match between two 600 pound men before. Like the battle at the center of “Sugar/Tzu,” black midi will be remembered for being a thrilling proposition unlikely to be repeated any time soon.
