Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Blues
From time to time Elsewhere will single out an album we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes as a double album in a gatefold sleeve with the all the lyrics (which are necessary, there's a lot of them!).
Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .
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Most genres of music have their identifiers: in country it can be beer, Jesus, Elvis and/or a pick-up truck; in death metal a guttural rumble which is Satan bellowing at you . . .
Anyone who feels much popular music simply defaults to these easy tropes and is lacking in risk, adventure and wit – and there are many of us who do – should push themselves to undertake a listening session with this solo album from singer/guitarist Geordie Greep of the British alt.rock experimentalists Black Midi.
Greep has said he's influenced by prog-rock, Miles Davis jazz, cartoon soundtracks, salsa, classical music, Frank Zappa, avant-garde sounds . . .
We might as well say “everything” and when it isn't galloping mad with lyrics as surreal as a dictionary thrown into a blender it's an album you admire for the sheer gall of its conceit.
An early single Holy Holy is both a harbinger and a warning: it's fueled by the insane operatic energy of Queen and in its gear shifts swerves abruptly from a dramatic stage show to an explosion in a music instrument store as horns blast and the drummer goes off with the caffeine rush.
There's machine-gun percussion then it veers into melodramatic rock which sounds beamed in from a ludicrous salsa-infused rock opera full of sex and fairly confused religious politics. Utterly nuts and enjoyable for that reason alone. It's only six minutes long but it feels like a weird week inside Greep's head.
Can't wait for the stage show directed by Baz Luhrmann.
Okay, that's what I made of it, try to come up with your own explanation.
Holy Holy
The title track is prog-jazz, the bewildering Walk Up ends like the parody of a country hoe-down, Though War opens like a big band it then seems to go all Weimar dictatorship on your arse, The Magician is 12 minutes long . . .
There are a lot of crazy characters singing these songs, it's like being thrown into a movie about The Joker and The Penguin re-imagined as a song and dance routine.
If this is, as the album title says, the new sound then all those identifiers, tropes and cliches will be dispensed with.
Or at least mangled together into something which requires you don't eat beforehand, buckle up and hold the railing tight.
The most odd/enjoyable/demanding album you'll hear this year.
The future is gonna be a helluva ride.
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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here. For more on Geordie Greep see this article.
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