Guided by an unrelenting spirit of adventure, freewheeling avant-rock experimentalists Black Midi have helped to raise the bar and revitalise guitar music for a Gen Z audience. Squashing post-punk, free jazz, math-rock and a melange of other styles into their strange and heady brew, the London band was formed in 2017 by BRIT School students Geordie Greep (vocals, guitar), Cameron Picton (vocals, bass guitar, synths), Morgan Simpson (drums) and Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin (vocals, guitar), with the latter later leaving the group in 2021 due to mental health issues. They launched the band with a gig in Brixton in 2017 and after generating a buzz around their live shows, released first single, "bmbmbm," in 2018 on Dan Carey's reputable Speedy Wunderground label. Signing to Rough Trade Records in 2019, they dropped two singles in March and April 2019, "Crows Perch" and "Talking Heads" respectively, with their critically lauded debut album, Schlagenheim, arriving in 2019. Drawing from a wide array of influences, including post-punk heroes The Fall and jazz maestro Miles Davis, the LP sealed their fate as genre-defying trailblazers capable of cacophonous, improv-rich noise as well as reflective rock. Schlagenheim was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2019 and was followed in 2021 by their second studio effort, Cavalcade, for which they took more of a structured approach to the creation process, relying less on improvisation. Absent from the recording sessions, guitarist Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin was replaced by touring members Kaidi Akinnibi and Seth Evans, who would also appear on Black Midi's third, Marta Salogni-produced album, Hellfire, which was released in 2022 and reached number 22 on the UK Albums Chart; their highest-charting album to date. In August 2024, the band announced an indefinite hiatus through its leader, Geordie Greep, who then began a solo career, marked by the release of the album The New Sound. On January 12, 2026, the death of Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin was announced; he was 26 years old.
