“The main theme of the record is desperation; you don’t hear an unreliable narrator but someone who is kidding themselves that they have everything under control, but they don’t.” Geordie Greep
Geordie Greep (guitarist and vocalist in black midi) today announces his debut solo album ‘The New Sound’ and shares its first single ‘Holy, Holy’.
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.”
Geordie Greep has had plenty of practice with black midi over the years in performing musical and lyrical Cruyff turns, full of stop-starts, blasts and bangs and whispered soliloquies. Here the method is employed to ask: what part of the narrative should we listeners believe, or take as our emotional crutch? The mercurial, insouciant tone set in ‘Terra’, or the gruesome imagery it is juxtaposed with? After all, Greep tells us, this is the story of “the museum of human suffering.” Consider, too, the strange emotional undulations created in ‘Through a War’, where the music makes a very polished stab at aping a soul revue; or a salsa class. It’s there to give colour to a set of imaginings which include cannibalism, being boiled alive, and a woman giving birth to a goat. You’re never quite sure when, or whether, you are supposed to be shocked; or laugh. Even if, as with the latter, Geordie Greep gives us the punchline; “And that’s how I spent my adolescence.”
Street life is all around: the listener is thrown into a world of cafes, bars and clubs, visit theatres, cabarets and strange museums, or rented rooms. Here we see our heroes carry out a series of naughty assignations, military cosplay or socio-economic triumphs. Greep; “I was often thinking of walking through a city, and thinking about a million dollars, showing that kind of feeling, you know?” Taking on The New Sound in its entirety can feel like you are trying to cross Piccadilly Circus after a skinful. Single ‘Holy Holy’ is possibly the best example: has urbane romantic fantasy ever sounded this way? Probably not since Noël Coward. This story of an imaginary liaison in a nightclub is soundtracked by ’noughties indie pop chords and bravura Latin big band arrangements - including a three-piano attack (Steinway, Bechstein, electric). ‘Motorbike’ sees a change in vocal duties: as bassist and album producer Seth ‘Shank’ Evans starts up a doleful soliloquy about not getting what he wants.
It’s certainly an album that fully engages the listener, throughout the eleven tracks. Greep; “I was worried about the length in terms of not overblowing it. But I’m also really bloody bored of listening to music and, for better or worse, knowing in advance what it means or what it’s trying to do. All my favourite music is about the listener coming to terms with what is going on. My favourite singers, like Peter Hammill or Nat King Cole, are literally one of a kind. I love that. Especially with lyrics, where you’re not sure what they’re going on about, but you know it’s not just abstract thoughts.”
What next? Could we see The New Sound as a live concept or is the album going to stay forever in our collective imagination? 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?

十多年前，地球上并没有人可以预言到来自美国中部俄克拉荷马城的The Flaming Lips，有朝一日可以跻身「伟大乐队」之列，甚至到底他们跟主流厂牌Warner Bros的宾主关系能维持多久，也叫人怀疑。然而时间却证明，The Flaming Lips是可以化腐朽为神奇。不是当年我们把他们低估了，而是他们有一天忽然洗心革面起来。
一队本是只有在乐坛上浮浮沉沉的乐队，凭着1999年的一张The Soft Bulletin专辑，当时已出道十六年的The Flaming Lips便得以脱胎换骨而来，为他们取得重大的音乐成就与高度评价，从NME到Uncut都选之为全年最佳专辑。看到是The Flaming Lips音乐生涯上一个历史性的转折点，更被奠定为Cosmic American迷幻音乐的新典范，建立起其美丽的迷幻王国。
The Soft Bulletin在1999年面世，俨如改写了这队乐团的命运。毕竟在The Soft Bulletin之前，The Flaming Lips只是一队在乐坛上浮浮沉沉的队伍。
成立于1983年的The Flaming Lips，早年是一队深受Buffhole Surfers影响的Noise Rock乐团。由八十年代过度至九十年代，适逢九十年代初叶Alternative Rock狂流冲击着主流乐坛，The Flaming Lips亦跟众多美国另类摇滚乐队一样，与主流唱片公司（Warner Bros）签下一纸合约。当年他们的撒手，是在台上表演「放火」以作哗众取宠。
直至93年专辑Transmissions From The Satellite Heart，The Flaming Lips才初尝商业成功的滋味──单曲She Don’t Use Jelly成为流行一时的大热作，甚至出现在坏孩子卡通片Beavis & Butthead里。可惜She Don’t Use Jelly的成功，随后The Flaming Lips却无以为继，最叫人深刻的，就只有97年出版过那套要四张CD用四部CD机同步播放的Zaireeka专辑（结果只售出二万五千张）而已。那时，我们都可以明正言顺地把The Flaming Lips称之为一队One-Hit-Wonder。
万料不到，他们竟然可以力挽狂澜，洗心革面地弄出一张The Soft Bulletin。
在台上继续放火，还是处心积虑谱写好歌？The Flaming Lips选择了后者。到了The Soft Bulletin，便是他们的收成期。
The Soft Bulletin的惊艳之处，是我们都为The Flaming Lips能够谱出这样美丽动听的迷幻流行曲而深表赞叹；Wayne演绎出一首首犹如The Beach Boys / Brian Wilson般漂亮美好歌曲，同时又配以种种光怪陆离的奇趣电子声响，打造出充满新鲜感的聆听经验。
Wayne表示当时他们的态度跟以往已不同日而语，他们从音乐才华到经验再到制作资金都增长了，加上阵中的多功能乐手Steven Drozd开始充当起音乐总监，而令到The Flaming Lips有组织起来，实行由从前的「灾难性」摇滚乐队，而演进为要打造出美丽的歌曲为己任。大家亦自此开始对The Flaming Lips重新衡量。

《混乱之子》是制作人，词曲作者，演奏者苏紫旭的第三张全长录音室唱片，继2017年他发行了前卫艺术摇滚乐队-The paramecia（昼夜生）的概念专辑《飞出迷楼》，2018年世界音乐乐团-Eong（以空）的纯器乐概念专辑《绝尘》之后他回归了个人项目—再次以唱作人的身份献出十一首歌，整张全长约七十分钟。 在这张唱片的歌词里他依然尝试着去拓展华语歌曲的写作边际。《混乱之子》呈现出丰富的音乐性，从制作上，从编曲、演唱、演奏及录音室技巧上也呼应、致敬着那些几十年来仍旧影响着无数音乐人的经典唱片。他希望能以对自身能力的整合去重建某种久已失传的气质—对人的理解，对人的关怀，对爱和友谊、时间和苦难，生活与社会的描写和映射。 可以说，《混乱之子》是给过去，给伤痛，给未来与人烟，勇气与执念的一封情书。 最后，我们对世界的爱恨世界并不知，无论怎样复杂的情感最终也仅限于人与人间，仅仅是歌唱和聆听而已。