The New Sound

Geordie Greep, primarily known as the guitarist and singer of the boundary-pushing avant-garde jazz-rock band black midi, carves his own way on his first solo album, ‘The New Sound’.

After three impressive albums with black midi, most recently Hellfire from 2023, and almost non-stop world tours over the last five years, Geordie Greep has somehow found time to record his solo album.

Geordie Greep says: ‘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.’

Across two continents, in the cities of São Paulo and London, over thirty session musicians helped create the album. Greep elaborates: ‘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.’

Throughout the 11 new tracks, the listener is guaranteed a unique listening experience to say the least. On the guitar parts of the brilliant lead single ‘Holy, Holy’, however, you'll also clearly sense that we are dealing with one of the primary forces behind black midi. So fans of the experimental band can rest assured that Geordie Greep is carrying on the baton of their unique soundscape.