Each day of December this year, I’m highlighting one of my favourite albums of 2024. Counting down the list, we start with #31 on December 1st and go all the way down until we’ve reached #1 on December 31st. Today, #9 on my Album of the Year list: Geordie Greep – ‘The New Sound’.

2024 marked the year that one of the most exciting bands of the last few years announced their indefinite hiatus. Not long after, two of its members went on their first solo-adventures with this band’s bass player, Cameron Picton, going on some kind of experimental folk roadtrip with his project Cámara Imagen, while frontman Geordie Greep took it to another level on his debut album ‘The New Sound’. I suppose it was only a matter of time before the highly talented individuals of experimental rock band black midi would go and explore the depths of their own abilities. For years, black midi had been one of the critics’ favourites. Understandably, those same critics went ham as soon as The Greep announced his first.

This album’s background story is pretty much everything you’ve come to expect from Geordie Greep. An album cover taken from Japanese cult animator Toshio Saeki (known for his erotic animations), instrumentation done by some random South-Americans, and the full thing being recorded in both London and São Paolo with over 30 different musicians (makes you wonder how much of a solo album this actually is) whilst being on tour with black midi. With a set-up this wildly unorthodox, you can only guess what kind of music will be featured on ‘The New Sound’. 

A hodgepodge. That’s probably the best way of describing this collection of songs. It’s a totally crazy cocktail of post-punk, prog. rock, bossa nova, funk, jazz, and math. And probably everything in between. Lead single ‘Holy, Holy’ is an excellent tune featuring all the best Geordie Greep has in store for us, often compared to music by Steely Dan. Borrowing the skills of drummer Morgan Simpson on ‘Blues’, ‘Walk Up’, and ‘Motorbike’ gives all these songs the frantic and beloved black midi touch we’ve come to love, and with 12,5 (!) minute ‘The Magician’ (together with ‘Walk Up’ originally meant for the black midi repertoire) being the penultimate song on this album, ‘The New Sound’ is nothing short of an inimitable madhouse. The references on this album range from French performer Léo Ferré to controversial influencer Andrew Tate, and with Greep’s storytelling mostly being done from the point of view of the characters he wrote in the past, ‘The New Sound’ is full of strange, intriguing, and sometimes even pathetic stories. Especially on ‘Holy, Holy’, and ‘As if Waltz’, this perspective comes to the forefront quite clearly. As if that’s not enough, we end this album in true fashion with a cover of 1940’s song ‘If You Are But A Dream’, recited by Greep like a proper crooner.

‘The New Sound’ is an overly theatrical display of some of Geordie Greep’s weirdest brainwaves. A bunch of dramatic narrations plonked on a bizarre mixture of musical styles, this album sure does prove the brilliant mastermind is adding some new sounds to his portfolio. Their band might be on hiatus, but Geordie Greep’s debut once again proves: there will never be a dull moment in the black midi universe.