black midi announce their debut full-length, Schlagenheim, to be released on June 21st via Rough Trade Records/Rhythmethod. Throughout, black midi – Georgie Greep (vocals/guitar), Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin (vocals/
Schlagenheim was recorded with Speedy Wunderground producer Dan Carey, who the band praises for his quick, unfussy approach. black midi laid down eight of the record’s nine tracks in just five days. The process was one of refining and rebuilding tracks around the initial structures. Five-hour jams would sometimes yield a riff that then became a few bars of a song. As anyone who’s been lucky enough to catch black midi live over recent months will testify, black midi’s songs are slippery creatures.
When the group began, they had far more rules and regulations about what should and shouldn’t be done, which transformed into more of an “anything goes” policy of experimentation. At first, the music they were making was “an ambient, droning, noisy thing” as Greep describes it, mutating into something reminiscent of Swans or the Boredoms, before songs like ‘bmbmbm’ and ‘Speedway’ started to take shape.
The foursome comprising black midi are all 19 and 20 years of age and have backgrounds steeped in music. Simpson grew up in a church and took up the drums when he was two. Greep started out playing along to the likes of Black Sabbath on “the OG” Guitar Hero. They all met at the Brit School, and praise their education for giving them a vital grounding in musical collaboration. While studying, the group paid their way by teaching music and doing sessions for friends. Greep and Kwasniewski-Kelvin would busk in south-east London, on some days playing Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ or blues and soul tracks, and on others playing their own music.
The band has promised that in a few years time, the music of black midi will be unrecognisable from how it is now. “It’s a bit bold, but you’ve got to set yourself challenges, there’s no point doing the same thing over and over again,” says Greep.
“It’s math-rock confronting a world of chaos.” – The New York Times”
“[black midi is] a group of four prodigiously talented musicians, applying their anarchic internet-age sensibility to their country’s long and proud tradition of intellectual noise-splattered punk.” – SPIN
“Black Midi are less interested in proving themselves the future of indie rock than in imagining indie rock from the future” – Pitchfork
(Schlagenheim artwork by David Rudnick)
Song titles will be revealed on release day
9 tracks – 43m 10s
