black midi present a new single/video, ‘Slow‘, from their forthcoming album, Cavalcade, out May 28th on Rough Trade / Remote Control Records. In conjunction, the band completed a new KEXP interview and live performance. A full circle moment for black midi, their first KEXP performance (live from Iceland Airwaves in 2019) is how many first experienced the band.
Following lead single ‘John L’, “a zoomed-out optical illusion, making you question what you’re witnessing at every turn,” (Pitchfork, “Best New Track”) ‘Slow’ is one of two Cavalcade songs fronted by bassist Cameron Picton. The music for ‘Slow’ was written just before black midi’s February 2020 UK tour with the lyrics finalised when demos were recorded in June 2020. They tell the story of a young and idealistic revolutionary dreaming of a better world who ends up being shot in the national stadium after a coup d’état.
“The ‘Slow’ video was made to fit the oscillating dynamics of the song. Going from calm to chaos over and over again,” says director and animator Gustaf Holtenäs. “The video tells the story of a character who creates AI-generated worlds. To emphasize this, I let real AI’s generate a lot of the backgrounds in these worlds. So they are partly AI-generated, but It isn’t long before an AI could create the whole deal and create endless iterations of fantasy worlds. It can already create a random beautiful landscape painting in 1 second.”
