black midi’s Geordie Greep has announced his debut solo album, The New Sound. It’s set for release on October 4 via Rough Trade Records. To accompany the news, he’s shared a new single, ‘Holy, Holy’, alongside a video directed by Ethan and Tom. Check it out below and scroll down for the album cover and tracklist.
Today’s announcement arrives just a week after Greep revealed that black midi are “indefinitely over.” “With recording The New Sound, it was the first time I have had no one to answer to,” Greep said in a press release. “And with every impulse I had, I was able to completely follow it through to its conclusion. Being in a band (black midi), we often have this ‘we can do everything’ feeling, but you are also kind of limited in that approach, and sometimes it’s good to do something else, to let go of things.”
“The main theme of the record is desperation; you don’t hear an unreliable narrator but someone who is kidding themselves that they have everything under control, but they don’t,” Greep added.
Over thirty session musicians were involved in the making of The New Sound, which stretched across São Paulo and London. “Some of the tracks we had recorded already, elsewhere, but it just wasn’t right, so we re-recorded them with new people,” Greep explained. “Half of the tracks were done in Brazil, with local musicians pulled together at the last minute. They’d never heard anything I’d done before, they were just interested in the demos I’d made. The tracking was all done in one, maybe two days. Then we did the overdubs later, in London.”
“I was worried about the length in terms of not overblowing it,” Greep went on. “But I’m also really bloody bored of listening to music and, for better or worse, knowing in advance what it means or what it’s trying to do. All my favourite music is about the listener coming to terms with what is going on. My favourite singers, like Peter Hammill or Nat King Cole, are literally one of a kind. I love that. Especially with lyrics, where you’re not sure what they’re going on about, but you know it’s not just abstract thoughts.”
The New Sound Cover Artwork:
The New Sound Tracklist:
1. Blues
2. Terra
3. Holy, Holy
4. The New Sound
5. Walk Up
6. Through A War
7. Bongo Season
8. Motorbike
9. As If Waltz
10. The Magician
11. If You Are But A Dream
