Black Midi drop high-octane new single, Chondromalacia Patella

Ahead of the release of their upcoming sophomore album Cavalcade, experimental post-rockers and electric guitar visionaries Black Midi have unleashed the record’s second single, Chondromalacia Patella.

Titled after a band member's knee injury, the fierce track is taken from the upcoming feature-length offering, which will be the four-piece's first LP since the release of their 2019 debut Schlagenheim.

Letting loose with an opening passage populated with rapid-fire, off-kilter guitar strums and silky, circulating drum rolls, the track is treated by the band as a blank sonic canvas, upon which they paint a kaleidoscope of wailing high-gain six-string stabs and wall-rumbling chordal punctuation marks.

As always, Black Midi’s instantly recognizable style of high-octane guitar appears in spades, serving up a dizzying array of how-did-they-do-that rhythmic pickups and dynamic-spanning instrumental interplays.

Accompanying the single is a music video directed by Vilhjálmur Yngvi Hjálmarsson, which you can check out below.

Chondromalacia Patella is the second single taken from Cavalcade, after the band unleashed the album’s formidable lead track John L earlier this year.

Speaking of the upcoming album, Black Midi rhythm king Morgan Simpson commented, “The experience this time round was completely the flipside to Schlagenheim. A lot of the material was really fresh but that was something that played into our hands and we relished it.”

Of Cavalcade’s more "harmonically interesting and challenging" approach, frontman Geordie Greep added, “It’s easy to get wrapped up in the improvisation myth of divine intervention, that if a song doesn’t happen in the room naturally without it being guided by some specifically, it’s not proper.

“That’s kind of a dangerous thing because you end up never trying something different, or you just abandon an idea if it doesn’t work at first because you’re always waiting for that thing to arrive perfect.”

Cavalcade is set to be released on May 28, and is available to preorder now.