Each week our music editor Dave Randall picks an album (with a local connection) you need to hear …
Schlagenheim by black midi
My first “pick-of-the-week” album is not for the faint hearted, but if you’ve ever felt the exhilaration of being swept along with the sonic odysseys of This Heat, Captain Beefheart, Primus, Can or Sonic Youth, then Schlagenheim from Brixton’s own black midi may be just the remedy to pent-up lockdown cabin-fever. The quartet’s debut studio album bristles with jittery energy, and tempi, time signatures and dynamics shift like volatile weather fronts. The album is immaculately produced by Dan Carey, who somehow captures both the raw intensity and the tense intimacy of the live show – a show honed in recent years at the Brixton Windmill, among other venues. Turn up the volume and hold tight!
Dave Randall is a musician and author of Sound System: The Political Power of Music
