YMMV / black midi

• Awesome Art: The hand drawn backgrounds in the video for "Slow" are worthy of a Masaaki Yuasa film.
• Awesome Music: Literally every second of recorded music they've released as of this writing. Some particular places to start are "bmbmbm", "Talking Heads", "John L.", and their cover of "21st Century Schizoid Man".
• Alternative Character Interpretation: "Ducter" has a surprising amount of this for how vague and minimalist the song's "story" is. Is it about a therapy session? A political debate? A trial? Is it a genuine Shut Up, Hannibal! moment, or is the narrator mentally unstable and merely claiming the other character couldn't "break him" as a Survival Mantra?

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Morgan Simpson has won particular acclaim among the band members for being a ridiculously good drummer.
  Pitchfork: Two things are immediately apparent while watching [the band's KEXP performance]: Everyone in Black Midi looks approximately 8 years old and their drummer is an absolute legend.
• Epic Riff: "953", "Speedway", "Near DT, MI", "Bmbmbm", "Ducter", and "Talking Heads" all provide standout examples.
• Funny Moments: There's an abundance of great Surreal Humor buried in all the Mind Screw. "ded sheeran" is probably the foremost example of this.
  • Their cover of "Psycho Killer", while also absolutely awesome, is also hilarious, with the famous French-language bridge being completely mangled by Geordie, with him going "SACRE BLEU" and saying "Some French shit!". And then the song becomes a cover of "Roxanne" instead.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "SHE MOVES WITH A PURPOSE IT IS SUCH A PURPOSE OH IT IS SUCH A PURPOSE WHAT A MAGNIFICENT PURPOSE"^Explanation The infamous Madness Mantra from "bmbmbm", which has pretty much become this band's equivalent of "IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES"
  • "She moves with a porpoise" ^Explanation From Geordie's bizarre pronunciation of the word "purpose" in the aforementioned song.
  • "TBE"^Explanation A Catchphrase Geordie started using around the time of their livestream set with Black Country, New Road which quickly got picked up by fans. Stands for "The best ever"
  • "This was the scene on main street when John Fifty came to town."^Explanation The infectious chorus for "John L", often paired with scenes of surreal chaos to match the song's tone.
• Narm Charm: Geordie's vocals are absurd, but that's what makes them so powerful.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page now
• Signature Song: "bmbmbm", for sheer memetic value if nothing else. Expect "She moves with a purpose" comments to show up on any video or article mentioning the band.
• Spiritual Successor: They basically sound like what would happen if Slint, King Crimson, Can, or This Heat was formed in the late 2010's. The King Crimson comparisons are particularly common, thanks to Black Midi's mix of Jazz Fusion and post-hardcore calling to mind the Crim's jazz metal sound in the '70s.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel:
  • "Marlene Dietrich", a Surprisingly Gentle Song that almost sounds like an early Scott Walker track for how lush and beautiful the arrangement is and how eloquent the lyrics are.
  • "Diamond Stuff" is just one beautiful, steadily unfolding crescendo that ends with a full choir.
  • "The Defence" is arguably their prettiest song to date, despite the Lyrical Dissonance.

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