Black Midi Go on Hiatus as Geordie Greep Says Band Is “Indefinitely Over”

It might be a short while earlier than Black Midi launch new music. Over the weekend, singer-guitarist Geordie Greep hosted an Instagram Reside session and, at one level, wrote, “Black midi was an fascinating band that’s indefinitely over.”

As Stereogum notes, the British group’s singer-bassist, Cameron Picton, wrote in a since-deleted submit on X, on Sunday, August 11:

We’d agreed to not say something about ‘breaking apart’ so I used to be as blindsided as everybody else final night time however perhaps differently. I assume generally all you’ll be able to say is lol
Anyway! Beginning classes for my very own document quickly, wanting ahead – needs to be good, hopefully nice!

When reached by Pitchfork, a consultant for the band mentioned, “Black Midi are on a hiatus for now whereas they’re engaged on solo initiatives.”

The information of Black Midi’s hiatus arrives as Geordie Greep is on the point of play North American solo reveals. The live shows happen in September in New York.

Geordie Greep, co-frontman Cameron Picton, drummer Morgan Simpson, and guitarist Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin shaped Black Midi in London in 2017, having met on the performing arts establishment Brit College. Citing influences that ranged from Danny Brown to the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Congolese soukous, the group emerged as leaders of a burgeoning experimental rock scene within the London underground, heralded by producer Dan Carey and his Speedy Wunderground label. The quartet, like lots of its friends, attracted consideration for its raucous reveals at the Windmill in Brixton, as a lot knowledgeable by art-rock hooks and post-hardcore melody as Greep and Simpson’s time reducing their enamel in church bands round London.

Black Midi launched their acclaimed debut, Schlagenheim, in 2019 by way of Tough Commerce. Produced by Carey, the document mixed noise-rock heft with nuanced instrumentation and Simpson’s helter-skelter rhythms. “We need to make it danceable,” Greep advised Pitchfork that yr. “On the finish of the day, a superb melody or rhythm is as exhilarating as a 20-minute drone.” After the departure of Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin, who took a break to give attention to his psychological well being, the trio expanded in each path with 2021’s Cavalcade, pinballing between steel scherzos, political screeds, cabaret waltzes, and baroque-rock.