Pitchfork made a list of 25 new artists "that help us consider the future of music: how it’ll be made, where it’ll come from, what role it’ll play in shaping scenes, and how genre lines may be increasingly dismantled". Some of the promising ones the P staff chose: MIKE for being "a beacon within the modern rap underground", Black Midi for "oddity and unpredictability", 100 Gecs for their "extreme pop music", Moor Mother for her "radical message", Bartees Strange for "his vision of what guitar music can encompass", Yves Tumor for their "restless experimentation", Amaarae for "bending the boundaries of Afro-fusion music", Navy Blue for being the "leader of a new class of introspective rapper-producers", Blood Incantation because they've "elevated old-school death metal into a psychedelic, ever-expanding solar system".

"You can't pin this album down from just one song or even three; there's all kinds of different stuff all over the record, and for all the discordant, amelodic stuff, there's also some genuinely beautiful stuff on there" - Brooklyn Vegan writes, somewhat confused, about the new album by the London prog-rock band. Guardian appreciates exactly this "freakish, feverish parade of our inconceivable world and all its extremities, half-measures be damned". Pitchfork describes it as "glorious", because "the chord changes are more elaborate, the rhythms more twisted, the pretty parts prettier, the heavy parts heavier".

"Marvellously-named guitarist and vocalist Geordie Greep [is] a soft-spoken 21-year-old who talks while barely moving his lips, dresses offstage like Tony Soprano’s accountant (ie, suited-and-booted ​’90s sharp), and can sing like a man possessed by a menagerie of personalities. Like the band, he contains multitudes" - The Face interview with black midi reads. Their new album 'Cavalcade' is out next week - "this is the eight-songs-wide, full-fathom-deep second record from black midi. Yes, it’s still, fantastically, a record to scare the neighbours".

Sarah Neufeld released an intense and dancy 'Tumble Down the Undecided' on her latest album; Florence + The Machine releases a silly little song 'Call Me Cruella' from the Disney live-action film 'Cruella'; black midi share jazz/rock 'Chondromalacia Patella'; Dark Lo & Harry Fraud go lo-fi psychedelic hip-hop on 'Missing Summers'; Wristmeetrazor join together melody and metalcore on 'This Summer's Sorrow Ⅱ: Growing Old In The Waiting Place'; David Bazan is deeply melancholic on 'Your Bearings'.

Sons of Kemet share 'To Never Forget The Source', the "central (ideological) axis-point" of their new album 'Black To The Future'; Jhariah are genre-less, operatic, grandiose, and fun on 'Flight Of The Crows'; Kele shares a subtle piano ballad 'Nineveh'; The Felice Brothers go slightly bizarre yet sweet on 'Inferno'; Q-Unique of Arsonists combines rap and rock on grand soul-rap 'Verrazzano Villains' featuring the Wu-Tang Clan's Cappadonna and three members of Taking Back Sunday; duendita goes lightly to surprise with 'bio'; Black Midi display a change of direction with jazzy-rock 'Slow' (not that slow at all).

“We wanted to try something completely different. After the first album we had written songs already trying to set in place a new direction but when COVID hit it gave us even more of an opportunity, individually, to further go down rabbit holes" - Black Midi’s singer and guitarist Geordie Greep tells the Quietus about band's new album 'Cavalcade' (out May 28). “The songs now have proper chord sequences and there's actually melody” - Greep adds. Also, there are a lot more instruments heard on the record too - violin, cello, saxophone, piano, bouzoukis, a late 19th Century zither called a Marxophone, flute, lap steel, synths, and even a wok that the band started using a violin bow on. Still, it's the same mission statement: "to make really theatrical, cinematic, expansive albums”.

The experimental UK rock band Black Midi has announced its second album 'Cavalcade' with a music video for the lead single, 'John L'. The peculiar video was directed by choreographer and creative director Nina McNeely, whose previous projects include Rihanna’s 'Sledgehammer' visual and Gaspar Noé’s 'Climax'. According to Pitchfork, half of the album was written by individual members of the band at home before they brought it to one another during rehearsals. Also, guitarist/founding member Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin stepped away from the group to tend to his mental health, and was substituted by saxophonist Kaidi Akinnibi and keyboardist Seth Evans. Black Midi also released another new song 'Despair', the b-side to 'John L'; it won't be a part of the new album.

The Quietus is opposed to album rating and best-of lists in general, but still, they took a bullet for their audience and made a list of 100 best albums of 2019. Good that they did, it's one of the most diverse. In the top 10 only, they have Black Midi, Richard Dawson, and Sunn O))), […]

"There is nothing about any of these songs that screams: dashed off or afterthought. This is the real deal and far superior to any rock music I can think of right now that was slaved over in a $$$$ studio over the course of weeks" - the Quietus says in a great article about the […]

London rapper Dave has won the 2019 Mercury Prize with his debut album 'Psychodrama', a critically acclaimed concept album about mental health, relationships and social conditions. This year the Mercury shortlist was just great: 1975‘s 'A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships', slowthai‘s 'Nothing Great About Britain', black midi‘s 'Schlagenheim', Little Simz‘s 'GREY area', Foals‘ 'Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 1', Nao‘s 'Saturn', IDLES‘ 'Joy as […]

Guardian has an interview with Black Midi, nominated for the prestigious British Mercury Music Award, trying to explain their music. The journalist of the London paper says their album 'Schlagenheim' reminds her of "the ambience of the internet – a cacophonous, always shifting stream of sonic information that feels spellbinding in part because you can’t […]

"The rap, grime and future R&B (Nao, slowthai, Little Simz, Dave) represented the most incisive rising British talent, the guitar rock (Idles, Fontaines D.C., Black Midi) was suitably disjointed, angular and innovative, the poised and/or melodramatic art-pop (Anna Calvi, Cate le Bon) bore not the faintest trace of Paloma or Florence, the bigger names (The […]

Whole lotta praise for Black Midi's debut album: "An experimental, genre-less and extremely noisy sound to exceptional results. Beyond weird... a legitimate one of a kind record... a masterpiece" - Paste Magazine. "Their determination to not bend to conventional song structure makes 'Schlagenheim' an engaging piece of work that will reveal its true nature over […]

"They fill the stage with noise, overwhelming grooves, songs constricting and then exploding around you. It’s one of those sounds that you think you can trace to a certain collection of antecedents, and yet sounds unlike anything anyone else is up to" - Stereogum says about London quartet Black Midi in their Band to Watch […]

The line-up at Hamburg’s Reeperbahn festival is full of fresh new artists who could very well reach next big thing status in the coming months. NME picked up 10 must-see acts: Amyl & The Sniffers, Black Midi, Boy Azooga, Geowulf, Great News, Halo Maud, King Princess, Men I Trust, Viagra Boys, WWWater.