The New Sound is the debut solo studio album by English musician Geordie Greep, released on 4 October 2024 on Rough Trade Records.
[3] "The Magician" and "Walk Up" were originally Black Midi songs that were performed live but did not make it to a studio album before the band's hiatus.
[4] Black Midi drummer Morgan Simpson is featured on several tracks, as is touring musician Seth "Shank" Evans, who produced the album and performs lead vocals on "Motorbike".
[7] On 10 August 2024, Greep abruptly announced that Black Midi had been on an indefinite hiatus, and that the band had internally split up long before he made it public.
[1] The album's recording sessions spanned "eight or nine" days in total, with Greep describing the process as "little chunks here and there rather than like a huge prolonged thing.
[10][11] The São Paulo sessions took place at Estudio Do Tuto and Da Pá Virada in November and December 2023 while Greep and Evans were on tour with Black Midi in Brazil.
"[9] The storytelling on The New Sound is frequently told from the point of view of characters Greep wrote, inspired by men that he met out drinking at clubs and the stories that they would tell him.
[12] Regarding the album's second single and opening track "Blues", Greep said, "I wanted to do a song about when you think you're the shit, and you have this feeling when you're walking down the street, and you can imagine it's a movie.
The album was basically finished, but then the producer [Seth Evans] had to pay a mixing engineer, so I went to Rough Trade and it was great.
"[9] Greep announced a listening party for the album on 9 September 2024 at Williamsburg Pizza in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
[15] Later that week, Greep made his live solo debut in the United States with four shows in New York City held in four different small venues, joined by a backing band of percussionist Santiago Moyano, drummer Charlie Schefft, bassist David Strawn and keyboardist Cameron Campbell.
[17] Huw Baines from NME noted that the record was "not necessarily trying to be clever – more that the sheer weight of its many ideas crushes the more visceral response that its obvious instrumental swagger demands from its listener.