black midi
Somerset House

ROCK, jazz, hip hop, ambient, prog, there are many musical genres that black midi mine in their repertoire and over an 80-minute set at Somerset House all of the above and more are touched upon.

Somerset House’s Summer Series of concerts sees the arts complex curate a collection of acts ranging from the everyday pop of Mabel or Carly Rae Jepsen to jazz drummer Yussef Dayes and rapper Ghetts.

Bang in the middle of the 11-day extravaganza – held in the open air by the river Thames – is London’s black midi.

Opening with a blast of opera, that sets the stall. This is an odd, eclectic musical mix of prog rock with a warped edge that works, albeit with a good dose of confusion and maybe a bit too much guitar noodling.

Opening track 953 immediately takes you into a rough and ready rock out with a jazzy edge, it’s disconcerting and jumps around but the audience lap it up. Speedway follows, slowing things down, it’s odd but strangely enveloping.

The band then play Welcome to Hell from their new album Hellfire –– which tells the tale of a soldier suffering from PTSD being berated by his commander, as a teaser for the album it highlights the band’s whole approach, slightly twisted, off beat but with a message.
 
And so it continues, with mixed up, eclectic tracks, sometimes merging into one another. The audience remains interested rather than full on enthusiastic and even with a slew of covers – including Kate Bush’s wonderful Wuthering Heights – the set fails to fully fly.

As dusk descends the groove gets going more fulsomely, there are echoes of US dance punk band!!, by way of The Fall, Foals and Sonic Youth all with a jazzy undertow.

In places it seems a tad self-indulgent, but then it takes you somewhere unexpected, but even with a long set the lack of encore meant the night kind of fizzled out.

The band is tight, the music is varied, perhaps too much so, and this is probably an acquired taste perhaps best caught at a festival.

Hellfire is released by Rough Trade Records on July 15.