Rough Trade
Geordie Greep (of Black Midi) Announces Debut Solo Album
Geordie Greep (guitarist and vocalist in black midi) today announced his debut solo album, ‘The New Sound’, and shares its first single ‘Holy, Holy’, plus video directed by Ethan and Tom, featuring Mr. Greep hitting non-stop strikes at a bowling alley (a good analogy for the record itself).
Following three astonishing albums with black midi, most recently 2023’s ‘Hellfire’, and almost non-stop worldwide tours for near-on five years, Geordie Greep has somehow found time to record his first solo album ‘The New Sound’, an album that has allowed him scope to explore creative ideas like never before. It boasts a brand of high quality, all-embracing alternative pop fun not heard in a very long time.
Geordie Greep; “With recording ‘The New Sound’, it was the first time I have had no one to answer to. And with every impulse I had, I was able to completely follow it through to its conclusion. Being in a band (black midi), we often have this ‘we can do everything’ feeling, but you are also kind of limited in that approach, and sometimes it’s good to do something else, to let go of things.”
Over thirty session musicians were involved in the making of the album, on two continents, in São Paulo and London.
Geordie Greep; “Some of the tracks we had recorded already, elsewhere, but it just wasn’t right, so we re-recorded them with new people. Half of the tracks were done in Brazil, with local musicians pulled together at the last minute. They’d never heard anything I’d done before, they were just interested in the demos I’d made. The tracking was all done in one, maybe two days. Then we did the overdubs later, in London.”
What next? A worldwide tour is in the works with planned stops in Toronto (February 3rd @ Velvet Underground) and Montreal (5th @ Bar Le Ritz)
Greep; “My plan is to ‘do a Keith Jarrett thing’, have a different group of session musicians in a different place and lean into the fact that we’re not going to get it the same.” How can anything ever be ‘the same’ with Greep at the helm?