In the Randomised Record series, I take us both on an adventure to (re)discover my record collection. Fate decides: whether it be that obscure grunge album I bought recently or that emo rap record from 2017. Nothing is safe from the hands of the randomiser! I will listen to the entire album and highlight my favourite song off of it here on the blog. Do I still enjoy my records as much as when I bought ‘em? Let’s find out. Today, episode 21: ‘Hellfire’ (2022) by black midi.

Each year, I go through at least one phase of passionately listening to black midi. Each album gets a play or two, whether it’s the immaculate ‘Schlagenheim’ or Geordie Greep’s 2024 solo-debut ‘The New Sound’. Today, I’m happy to play black midi’s third and (as of yet) final album ‘Hellfire’. Packed with arguably some of the band’s best tunes, this album is the perfect ending to what were 5 ecstatic years for the industry’s perhaps most talented bunch of young musicians. Even though the band continued to exist for another two years, this album marks the end for new music coming from black midi.

I often talk about the perks of working in the music industry and how having access to unreleased tunes is one of them. However, another perk that certainly may not be overlooked is the fact that I’m privileged to work with a bunch of similarly music-crazy nerds such as myself. We often know where to look for the next big thing and as soon as we got a hold of black midi’s infamous KEXP-performance at Iceland Airwaves 2018, we knew we were up for something special. The group, then still featuring guitarist Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin (who went on to make some peculiar tunes), played 4 untitled songs and ‘bmbmbm’, enough to steal the hearts of fans of technically sublimely executed music. A few months later, in February 2019, we popped down to an underground venue in Amsterdam to catch the group play live, me securing myself a great t-shirt and a copy of the ‘Speedway’ 12”. The rest is history. We’d all fallen in love with this band and me, as a drummer, in particular with Morgan Simpson. What a talent that is! I can’t get enough of watching him play. Unbelievable!

Fast forward a couple of years and ‘Hellfire’ marks the end of what was black midi, some sort of musical enigma with a legacy living on for many years to come. Whenever I listen to anything this band has released, I get that feeling of having been part of something special. Being alive when black midi released music, played shows, counting myself lucky to have attended a few. Each as different and surprising as the other ones. I feel like in 30 years from now, me and people my age will be talking about black midi the way previous generations talked about artists like Zappa, Dylan, and – why not – GG Allin. One can only hope black midi will once return with an album being even more perplexing than the ones released prior.