One of this year’s most exciting musical directions is that a young London four-piece making profoundly difficult and genuinely unclassifiable music were picked up, Mercury nominated and listened to far and wide. The year’s most talked-about debut confirmed pretty much only one thing, that black midi are making music like no other band in the world. As much as it is a frenetic amalgamation of ideas and influences, Schlagenheim is testament to the precocious and fearless youthful exuberance of its creators. It chops and changes throughout, and although they had all eyes on them, they seemingly carried on much as they do on stage; it’s as if the audience is a by- product of the frenetic energy that exists between them. The band’s feet are most rooted in a deranged take on noise rock, a jacked-up mode of the sort of sonic experimentalism that emanated from West Germany in the late 60s. There are elements of free jazz in there too, anarchic sections that break down the pace, further accentuating the ow of the rest of the album where the ideas really click into place. Some of the tracks have a disarmingly catchy melody under the clunks and squealing guitars. The frenzied guitars and the wide-eyed stare of Geordie Greep’s vocals are truly powerful because they are locked in place by Morgan Simpson’s quite extraordinary drumming. A human metronome, he allows everything else sonic to oscillate wildly as he pounds, thumps and skitters at the very centre of everything they do. The other factor on record is the utterly perfect pairing with producer Dan Carey, a set of hands and ears seemingly connected to everything important and vital around. Although what they are doing is extreme, each sound is beautifully captured, and that clarity makes for a kaleidoscope rather than a cacophony. A fiercely unique record that is in fitting lineage to The Pop Group’s seminal Y debut, 40 years later and equally disruptive. A legitimate one of a kind album.