If you’re naggingly up to date on all of the goings-ons of the math-rock world, you’ve probably heard the words “black midi” plugged a few times. No, it’s not a style of dress— it’s a ~rock~ band. They’ve just released their third and final single from their debut album, Schlagenheim, and it’s just as indescribable as the last two. We can say with absolute certainty that you’ve never heard anything like this before, and exactly three minutes and 24 seconds into this new song, you’ll see that we were right. Listen below.
The accompanying video deserves a paragraph of its own. It’s exactly what we’d pictured when we hear the words “math-rock”— a mess of streaming red lines, blinking matrix-like lights, geometric computer-generated buildings that sink underwater so freakishly precisely— the video has it all. But the peculiarity does not end there. Halfway through, pantings that originally appeared in their normal form suddenly start melting, morphing into terrifying, warped versions of themselves, while waterfalls start going backwards and spewing out mini-versions of paper people. The world instantly goes topsy-turvy, not stopping for a break as the music picks up in the background, everything on the screen shatters and crumbles, and the singer’s voice dissolves into screams. If that 6-minute visual doesn’t match the song perfectly, we don’t know what does.
Following their much-talked about performance at this year’s South By Southwest back in March, Black Midi are preparing to release their debut album, Schlagenheim, via Rough Trade Records tomorrow. It’s something. It’s sonically intense, unpredictable, threatening—at times falling into the grips of complete and utter disarray, and at other moments timing and arranging instruments with near-mathematical precision. It’s a 9-track album of songs that are nearly impossible to categorize, and takes the word “experimental” to quite a new level. We’ll keep the tracklist secret for now, but Schlagenheim will be out in all it’s glory in just a few hours.
You can still preorder it here.