Black Midi Co-Founder Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin Dies at 26

Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin, the co-founding guitarist of Black Midi who carried out on their debut album, Schlagenheim, earlier than leaving the group in 2021, has died, his household introduced in a statement by way of the band’s label, Rough Trade. His loss of life adopted “a protracted battle together with his psychological well being,” in line with the assertion. He was 26 years outdated.

Kwasniewski-Kelvin took up guitar in major faculty, shortly adopting a style for skater-adjacent punk-pop. His father, who performed in a celebration band, often invited him to rehearsals, the place Kwasniewski-Kelvin, then 12, would solo over the group’s blues and pop jams. He met his future Black Midi bandmates—Geordie Greep, Cameron Picton, and Morgan Simpson—on the London performing arts establishment the BRIT College, the place Greep helped steer his classmate’s tastes in direction of “harsh noise, drone music, Merzbow,” as Kwasniewski-Kelvin told Pitchfork in 2019, two years after the band shaped.

Feted for hectic reveals at Brixton’s Windmill venue—with Kwasniewski-Kelvin alternating delirious post-hardcore riffs with summary, generally improvised noise—the four-piece spearheaded the south London scene that launched a era of British experimental rock, continuously sharing phases with the likes of Black Country, New Road, Jerskin Fendrix, and Shame.

After signing to Rough Trade, the band launched Schlagenheim, produced by Speedy Wunderground honcho and scene shepherd Dan Carey, to rave critiques in 2019. They squeezed in main excursions of North America and Europe earlier than the coronavirus pandemic, however when the band returned, with Cavalcade, in early 2021, Kwasniewski-Kelvin was absent. “I’ve been taking a while off from the band as I’ve been mentally unwell,” he wrote, including that he hoped to be again quickly. On the time, the band stated, “We’re all absolutely behind our greatest mate in his restoration,” and famous, “you’d be shocked on the lengths individuals will go that will help you.”

After a 3rd album, Hellfire, the remaining Black Midi trio went its separate ways—“indefinitely”—in 2024. Within the meantime, Kwasniewski-Kelvin continued to play casually in London, together with a visitor look on Wu-Lu’s 2022 album Loggerhead. In 2024, he launched a polemical solo recording criticizing the British Labour Occasion and calling for a free Palestine.

In its assertion, the Kwasniewski-Kelvin household added, “A proficient musician and a form, loving man lastly succumbed; regardless of all efforts…. Please take a second to verify in together with your family members so we will cease this taking place to our younger males.”