The experimental UK band ‘black midi’ have announced their second album, Cavalcade (Rough Trade). To mark the occasion, they have shared the single ‘John L’ and a music video directed by choreographer and creative director Nina McNeely, whose previous projects include Rihanna’s “Sledgehammer” visual and Gaspar Noé’s Climax.
After initially recording “John L” with producer Marta Salogni in London, the band found themselves in the aptly named Hellfire Studios, in the Dubli...
The experimental UK band ‘black midi’ have announced their second album, Cavalcade (Rough Trade). To mark the occasion, they have shared the single ‘John L’ and a music video directed by choreographer and creative director Nina McNeely, whose previous projects include Rihanna’s “Sledgehammer” visual and Gaspar Noé’s Climax.
After initially recording “John L” with producer Marta Salogni in London, the band found themselves in the aptly named Hellfire Studios, in the Dublin mountains, in summer 2020 under the eye of John ‘Spud’ Murphy. The track has a massive sound, driven by some gutsy Discipline-era King Crimson thrust, and energy wrought by the inclusion of Jerskin Fendrix on violin. The group tease the raging track to the point of nonexistence before leading it through caverns of reverb and gauzy snareskin landscapes, just for it to return, hitting hard as hell once more. The story painted is a jet-black comedy about what happens to cult leaders when their followers turn on them.
More about Cavalcade:
The groundwork for Cavalcade was laid in 2019 — musical sketches that had been brewing since the release of Schlagenheim began muscling their way into black midi set lists and finally became individual entities. But with this album, there was a “yearning” to be more considered and record something that was more harmonically interesting and challenging. “It’s easy to get wrapped up in the improvisation myth of divine intervention, that if a song doesn’t happen in the room naturally without it being guided by someone specifically, when we’re all just feeling the vibe, then it’s not proper and it’s not pure,” says Greep. “That’s kind of a dangerous thing because you end up never trying something different, or you just abandon an idea if it doesn’t work at first because you’re always waiting for that thing to arrive perfect.”
With this new approach in mind, half of Cavalcade was written by individual members at home and brought to the table in rehearsal. black midi recruited two new members to play on the record: saxophonist Kaidi Akinnibi and keyboardist Seth Evans.
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