Английская Википедия:Black Midi

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Black Midi (stylised in all lowercase) are an English rock band from London, formed in 2017 and currently consisting of Geordie Greep (vocals, guitar, piano, synths, accordion), Cameron Picton (vocals, bass, synths, flute, guitar), and Morgan Simpson (drums). The trio has been frequently joined by Seth Evans (keyboards, synths, bass) and Kaidi Akinnibi (saxophone) in both studio and live performances since 2020. Their name is derived from the Japanese electronic music genre black MIDI, though their own music has no relation to it, instead incorporating styles such as math rock, progressive rock, post-punk, and avant-jazz.

The band began on producer Dan Carey's record label Speedy Wunderground, through which they released their debut single "bmbmbm" in 2018. They released their debut studio album Schlagenheim, produced by Carey, on 21 June 2019, through Rough Trade Records. It received critical acclaim, entered the top 50 of the UK Albums Chart, and was nominated for the 2019 Mercury Prize. An anthology album including several recorded jams and spoken word tracks, The Black Midi Anthology Vol. 1: Tales of Suspense and Revenge, was released on 5 June 2020 exclusively to Bandcamp. In January 2021, founding member Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin went on hiatus from the group for health reasons. The band's second studio album, Cavalcade, was released on 26 May 2021. Their third studio album, Hellfire, was released on 15 July 2022.

History

Formation and first singles (2015–2019)

Prior to the formation of the band, Geordie Greep had separate jam sessions with Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin and Morgan Simpson, all of whom (alongside Cameron Picton) were attending BRIT School. Simpson was an accomplished drummer, winning the "Young Drummer of the Year" award in 2014. In 2016 Greep and Kwasniewski-Kelvin enlisted Simpson to form a band, with Greep and Kelvin on guitar and vocals, and with Simpson on drums. Picton joined later, on bass guitar, to complete the line-up. The band played their first gig at Brixton's The Windmill on 12 June 2017, supporting the band Leg Puppy, and would later go on to have a residency at the venue.

On 8 June 2018, the group released their debut single titled "bmbmbm" released on producer Dan Carey's record label Speedy Wunderground. On 26 September 2018, a cassette was released featuring segments of a performance with Damo Suzuki which took place on 5 May 2018 at The Windmill. On 9 November 2018, Black Midi performed five songs from their then untitled upcoming album, live at Kex Hostel in Reykjavik, Iceland, during the music festival Iceland Airwaves. The eccentric performance, which was recorded for the Seattle radio station KEXP, was praised online and became popular on YouTube, exposing the band to listeners internationally. The band contributed the song "Ice Cream" featuring Jerskin Fendrix on vocals for a Brixton Hillbilly compilation album, released 7 December 2018. On 23 January 2019, the group released their second single, "Speedway". A 12" vinyl record was released featuring remixes by Proc Fiskal, Kwake Bass, and Blanck Mass.

Schlagenheim and other projects (2019–2020)

Файл:Black Midi 2019 Festival Sideways, Helsinki (48045809667).jpg

Black Midi performing at Sideways Festival 2019 in Helsinki, Finland.

In January 2019 the group announced that they had signed to Rough Trade Records. The group released two singles on the label in March and April 2019, "Crows Perch" and "Talking Heads" respectively. On 14 May, the group announced their debut album titled Schlagenheim, which was released 21 June 2019. The album was recorded in 2018 with producer Dan Carey, who became impressed by the band at an early live show. Instead of merely recreating their live show, they chose to augment their sound with piano, accordion, synthesisers, banjo, and drum machines. "The idea was to do stuff that's impossible to do live", frontman Greep explained. "If the album and the gig are just the same, it's a bit sad." The majority of the album was recorded in just five days. At Metacritic, a website that assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, Schlagenheim received a score of 82, based on 20 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The album was later nominated for the 2019 Mercury Prize.

On 7 March 2020, the band performed live at the BBC Radio 6 Music festival in Camden. In June 2020, the band released a jam and spoken word album via Bandcamp entitled The Black Midi Anthology Vol. 1: Tales of Suspense and Revenge, consisting of four short stories read by the members of the band over jam instrumentals as well as three instrumental mixes mostly taken from the same recordings as the spoken word tracks. On 16 June 2020, the band began hosting a monthly radio show called The Black Midi Variety Hour on NTS Radio. Six episodes have been produced so far. On 10 December 2020, the band performed a show with the group Black Country, New Road under the alias Black Midi, New Road as a charity gig for live venue The Windmill, Brixton. The show was livestreamed from The Windmill's Bandcamp page with an entry fee of £5. The group have performed under the Black Midi, New Road moniker at the venue before.

Файл:Black Midi at the Wide Awake Festival (51426235732).jpg

Wide Awake Festival 2021.

Kwasniewski-Kelvin's hiatus, Cavalcade and Hellfire (2021–present)

Шаблон:Main On 15 January 2021, Black Midi announced through social media that their guitarist Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin had been taking time off from the band due to mental health issues and that he is not featured on forthcoming material from the band. The band announced their second studio album, Cavalcade, on 23 March 2021, which was released on 26 May 2021. On the day of the announcement, they also released the album's lead single, "John L", backed with the non-album track "Despair". Kwasniewski-Kelvin appears on the album only as composer on a couple of tracks; he was not part of the recording process. Touring members Akinnibi and Evans were a part of the album's recording sessions. A second single, "Slow", was released on 28 April and coincided with a second KEXP performance released the same day. This performance features Evans and Akinnibi as well as a small brass section.

The band toured Europe and the US in throughout 2021 and 2022. The band has also opened for themselves at concerts as an alter ego group known as "Orange Tree Boys", touted as a funk blues band from Las Vegas.

On 22 March 2022, the band released the digital EP Cavalcovers, a collection of cover versions of songs by King Crimson, Taylor Swift and Captain Beefheart originally released as flexi-disc bonus records with pre-ordered vinyl copies of Cavalcade.

On 9 May 2022, they released "Welcome to Hell", the lead single from their third album Hellfire. They released "Eat Men Eat", the second single from the album, on 15 June 2022. On 12 July, the third single, "Sugar/Tzu" was released. Hellfire was released on 15 July 2022 and charted at No. 22 in the United Kingdom, their highest placement yet. It also became their first album to chart in the United States, reaching No. 139.

In the autumn of 2022, Black Midi announced the "Back in Black Tour" supported by Black Country, New Road in the United States. It was on this tour that the band debuted unreleased material, including songs "Magician" and "Askance," with the former undergoing various changes throughout 2022 and further tours in 2023. "Magician" was first performed at Ram's American Pub on September 6, 2022, captured by fans and uploaded to YouTube with a six-and-a-half minute length.

Musical style

The band's sound has been variously labeled as experimental rock, art rock, progressive rock, math rock, post-punk, and avant-prog.

Members

Current members

• Geordie Greep – lead vocals, guitar, bass (2017–present)
• Cameron Picton – lead vocals, bass, synths, samples, guitar (2017–present)
• Morgan Simpson – drums (2017–present)

Past members

• Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin – guitar, occasional main vocals (2017–2020; on hiatus)

Touring and session musicians

• Seth Evans – bass, keyboards, synths (2020–present)
• Kaidi Akinnibi – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone (2020–2022)

Timeline

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• Black Midi performing at Rough Trade, London, 25th June 2019
• Cameron Picton

  Cameron Picton

• Geordie Greep

  Geordie Greep

• Morgan Simpson

  Morgan Simpson

Discography

Studio albums

List of studio albums, with selected chart positions

Title	Album details	Peak chart positions
		UK	AUS	BEL (FL)	JPN	SCO	US	US Indie
Schlagenheim	Released: 21 June 2019 Label: Rough Trade Format: CD, LP, cassette, download	43	—	113	211	40	—	41
Cavalcade	Released: 26 May 2021 Label: Rough Trade Format: CD, LP, cassette, digital	60	81	66	62	18	—	48
Hellfire	Released: 15 July 2022 Label: Rough Trade Format: CD, LP, cassette, digital	22	45	90	58	7	139	15

Compilations

List of collections

Title	Album details
The Black Midi Anthology Vol. 1: Tales of Suspense and Revenge	Released: 5 June 2020 Label: Self-released Format: Digital
Covercade	Released: 28 May 2021 Label: Rough Trade Format: CD

Extended plays

List of extended plays

Title	Album details
BM Xmas Covers	Released: 18 December 2020 Label: Self-Released Format: Digital
Cavalcovers	Released: 22 March 2022 Label: Self-released Format: Digital

Live albums/EPs

List of live albums

Title	Album details
Damo Suzuki Live at the Windmill Brixton with 'Sound Carriers' black midi Шаблон:Small	Released: 28 September 2018 Label: Self-released Format: Cassette
Live at KEXP	Released: 21 June 2019 Label: Rough Trade Format: CD
Live on Canal St, NYC ('The Pizza EP')	Released: 29 November 2019 Label: Rough Trade Format: LP, CD
Black Midi Live in the USA	Released: 21 March 2020 Label: Self-released Format: Digital Featuring: Fat Tony
Live-Cade	Released: 16 November 2021 Label: Rough Trade Format: LP
Live Fire	Released: 14 November 2022 Label: Rough Trade Format: LP, CD

Singles

Title	Year	Album
"bmbmbm"	2018	Schlagenheim
"Speedway"	2019
"Crow's Perch"		rowspan="2" Шаблон:N/A
"Talking Heads"
"Ducter"		Schlagenheim
"7-Eleven"		rowspan="2" Шаблон:N/A
"Sweater"	2020
"John L / Despair"	2021	Cavalcade
"Slow (Loud)"
"Chondromalacia Patella"
"Cruising"		rowspan="1" Шаблон:N/A
"Welcome to Hell"	2022	Hellfire
"Eat Men Eat"
"Sugar/Tzu"

Other appearances

Year	Song	Album
2018	"Ice Cream" (with Jerskin Fendrix)	It's Briiiiiixmaaaaaas!
	"Of Rivia (Live)"	Independent Venue Week (Live 2018)
2020	"bmbmbm (Live)" "Extended Jam (Live)" (with Black Country, New Road as "black midi, new road")	Live at The Windmill
	"953 (Live)"	Live at Windmill Brixton - In Between the Lockdowns

Music videos

List of music videos, showing year released and director

Title	Year	Album	Director(s)
"Speedway"	2019	Schlagenheim	Cameron Picton
"Crow's Perch"		Шаблон:N/A	Vilhjálmur Yngvi Hjálmarsson
"Ducter"		Schlagenheim	Anthony Macbain and Roxie Vizcarra
"John L"	2021	Cavalcade	Nina McNeely
"Slow"			Gustaf Holtenäs
"Chondromalacia Patella"			Vilhjálmur Yngvi Hjálmarsson
"Welcome To Hell"	2022	Hellfire	Gustaf Holtenäs
"Eat Men Eat"			Maxim Kelly
"Sugar/Tzu"			Noel Paul

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result	Шаблон:Abbr
2019	AIM Independent Music Awards	UK Independent Breakthrough	Black Midi	Шаблон:Nom
2020	Libera Awards	Marketing Genius	Schlagenheim	Шаблон:Nom
2021	Mercury Prize	Album of the Year		Шаблон:Nom
2022	UK Music Video Awards	Best Alternative Video - UK	"Sugar/Tzu"	Шаблон:Nom
			"Eat Men Eat"	Шаблон:Nom
		Best Editing in a Video		Шаблон:Nom
			"Sugar/Tzu"	Шаблон:Nom
		Best Cinematography in a Video		Шаблон:Won
		Best Animation in a Video	"Welcome to Hell"	Шаблон:Nom
2023	Libera Awards	Best Heavy Record	Hellfire	Шаблон:Won
		Best Short-Form Video	Hellfire TikTok Promotion	Шаблон:Nom

External links

• Шаблон:Official website
• Black Midi discography at Discogs