Black Midi’s debut attempts to create controlled chaos in little over 43 minutes, and I’m not sure if it’s genius or madness, but it’s plenty of both.
Torn between themes of power clashes and relationships, Schlagenheim lacks any central concept. At times it creates something palpable and excellent, at others, its own indulgence gets the better of it and genius most definitely turns to madness.
In moments they create something that very few bands can, a balance between relaxed and controlled, randomness and calculation, a goldy locks centre so to speak but it never lasts long enough. Their nature of constant flux repeatedly rears toward something that sounds more like conjured hell spawned inside the body of Thom Yorke. Not in a good way either. And unfortunately, in these parts, I had to turn it off, the wall of noise and sound simply got too much to digest.
