The term "classic" carries with it a very heavy set of expectations. It implies an album that truly goes above and beyond, one that is not only of immaculate quality but also of historical significance in some manner. This makes it nigh impossible to proclaim a fresh release to be one, as it takes time to unfurl the album's impact. What differentiates musical revolutionaries and raving madmen is the following they generate, the influence they exert. And even in the case of the select few trailblazers, it's usually possible to trace their influences. Music, like any other civilisational development, is predominantly driven forward by a steady stream of minor incremental improvements. Frank Zappa's starting point was a love of contemporary classical and 50s doo-wop, set in a rock landscape. Korn had a decade of metal mingling with funk, groove and rap to use as a foundation. As such, there's no magical criterion that can be used to predict a classic at time of genesis. The closest we have to go on is quality.
Cavalcade oozes quality. So much so that it's an extremely intimidating album to try to write about, as missing any of its myriad of layers, quirks and influences feels like an injustice. From a bird's eye view, it takes Black Midi's brand of post-Polvo mathsy rock and instils it with a deep thirst for expansion and experimentation, bringing to mind the recklessness of the most brilliant post-punk acts. The end result is a listening experience as dense as the cover art, yet somehow very welcoming and not pretentious. At the core of each song lies a set of perfectly crafted melodies, ranging from the understated to the bombastic, which then get embellished with lush, diverse arrangements. There's a ton to unpack, yet the roadmap is clear and makes perfect sense from the get go.
The ridiculous opener "John L" makes for a good specimen to examine this phenomenon. The song's structuring has a simple foundation, with a particularly accomplished sax groove that sounds like late 70s New York acting as the key hook bookending the piece. Yet even when the sax groove is doing its thing, there's an incredible amount of stuff going on behind it - a muted baritone guitar is providing texture, as are various perplexing string noises and the occasional appearance of a fist-meet-keys dadaist piano. With time, the proceedings start veering off into unexplored areas, yet there's always some element of continuity tying it all together. The guitar breaks things up with a sharp strum, but does so in a rhythm emulating the first half of the sax groove. The drums fall apart a bit in the background, and soon the entire ensemble follows suit into a Beefheartian rhythmic meltdown. When everything cuts out, the main vamp of the polyrhythmic section is still played softly as the foundation for the atmospheric break, and reemerges to serve as the basis of the skittish jazzy guitar solo. The abrasive piano wakes up and helps sculpt some incredibly layered dissonant chord stabs, the likes of which most twentieth century avant-garde practitioners would gladly call their own, before the song leads back to the sax groove from the start. The melodic hook works from the first exposure, while repeated listens reveal insight into the texturing and show the hectic mid section to be meticulously woven rather than haphazardly slapped together.
The same general principle holds for the rest of the album, but the band are aware of listener fatigue and expertly manipulate tension. A lot of Cavalcade is quite subdued, with ample acoustic guitars and a rich orchestral tapestry accented with whooshing electronics. Assuming the song calls for it - "Diamond Stuff" starts off with an extremely minimalistic muted pluck that's stuck somewhere in limbo between no wave outsider and bedroom slowcore. Busier moments often arise via arrangement layering, such as the Talking Heads'y vamp of "Chondromalacia Patella" picking up some overdrive and morphing into a brief moment of hard rock tinged gallop. The best of the delicate tracks is "Ascending Forth". The song is not afraid to mess around with anxious chord shapes and wonky meters, but does so sparingly and in the interest of keeping the listener engaged. Add in a stellar drum take and moving soundtrack-tier scoring, and the nine minutes fly by in an instant. While the drummer is the star of the record, the remaining band members put in a great performance. The bass carries the bossa nova of "Marlene Dietrich", while the guitars are particularly on form in the jumpy, jazzy "Slow". The piano makes a repeat appearance in "Hogwash and Balderdash", and the resulting note clusters help make this the most pulse-raising track after the opener.
So are we witnessing the birth of a classic? Honestly, I have no idea. It's possible to trace Black Midi's influences, as it is for most anyone, but the way they're utilised and stitched together around the clear melodies feels quite exciting. Good music gets released every day. Coming across a truly remarkable release that gives you goosebumps from excitement is the sort of thing that happens once every few years at most, and often involves exploring archival releases and new styles. Cavalcade is the first instance of a fresh release where I'm familiar with the background that elicits this level of response in me.
