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UID:the-midnight-jessie-frye-93dd2695@mke-field-guide.vercel.app
DTSTAMP:20261008T230504Z
DTSTART:20261015T010000Z
DTEND:20261015T030000Z
SUMMARY:The Midnight\, Jessie Frye
LOCATION:Pabst Theater\, Pabst Theater\, 144 E. Wells Street\, Milwaukee\, WI\, 53202\, United States
DESCRIPTION:Don’t say The Midnight didn’t warn you. After teasing fans on social media with\nominous imagery\, snippets of lush keyboard washes\, and cryptic references to\nclassic science fiction stories\, the band that emerged over a decade ago out of\nLos Angeles returns with Syndicate\, their fifth studio album (not even counting\nthe three EPs released between) and their most ambitious and outward-looking\nwork yet. Syndicate evolves The Midnight’s simultaneously retro and\nforward-looking sound while cementing the band’s status as perhaps the most\nmusically and lyrically ambitious act to come out of the burgeoning synthwave\nscene.\n\nWith four singles already released from the 17-track album (“Shadowverse\,”\n“Digital Dreams\,” “Chariot\,” and “Love is an Ocean\,”) the listener can already\nget a sense of the wider canvas the band is painting with. “This is our ‘making\npeace with the apocalypse’ record\,” says singer and lyricist Tyler Lyle.\n\nAnd while Syndicate’s lyrics embrace the unsettled\, sometimes paranoid side of\nthe 1980s (few reminisces of the period focus on how preoccupied by nuclear war\nthe eighties were) Lyle’s creative partner Tim McEwan brings undertones of\nanxiety and even doom to the lush synth washes and hooky yet unexpected chord\nprogressions that fans of The Midnight have come to know and love.\n\nThe band was born in spring 2012 from the fortuitous meeting of two very\ndifferent musical sensibilities. Atlanta-born Lyle emerged from the\nfolk-inflected Georgia music scene that grew up around the legendary Eddie’s\nAttic live music venue. “I came to LA thinking I was gonna be the next Mumford\nand Sons\,” Lyle laughs\, recalling how he was put together with Danish songwriter\nand multi-instrumentalist Tim McEwan in what he calls “a songwriters’ blind\ndate.”\n\nThe two quickly discovered the overlap of their creative Venn diagram lay in the\nmoody\, synthesizer-driven sound that exploded in popularity in the wake of the\ncult thriller Drive and especially its enormously influential retro-1980s\ninspired soundtrack. But the new musical direction required a lot of adjustment\nfrom both men. “Up until then I’d been moving in more traditional pop circles\,”\nrecalls McEwan\, “and I really had to unlearn those tendencies.”\n\nFor McEwan\, this meant embracing his inner maximalist\, using the maxim “If it\nfeels like it’s over the top…add more!”\n\nAnd for Lyle\, it meant moving away from narrative-driven lyrics and toward songs\nthat relied more on imagery and pure mood. “I decided at some point that I’m not\ngonna tell a story\,” says Lyle\, “Instead\, I’m gonna describe what the scenery\nis.”\n\nThe result is a listening experience that evokes in the listener Proustian sense\nmemories of first loves and afternoons on the couch playing 8-bit video games\nwhile simultaneously feeling downright cinematic. In a genre sometimes derided\nfor trafficking in easy nostalgia\, The Midnight eschews putting air quotes\naround the DX7 solo of a 1980s radio hit in favor of washing over listeners and\nmaking them feel like they’re standing on a rainy street under neon inside a\nMichael Mann or a Tony Scott movie.\n\n“I got into (mythologist and Hero With a Thousand Faces author) Joseph Campbell\nand (Swiss psychotherapist and author) Carl Jung in a big way and realized at\nsome point that instead of just being a synth pop band we were building an\nentire world with all of these archetypes\,” says Lyle. “We realized we were\nplaying with the imagery of the ‘80s\, but in the same way Springsteen did with\nmidcentury America and factory work and such. That’s when it really became fun.”\n\nAlso notable in a scene more known for studio experimentation\, The Midnight\nquickly emerged as an exciting live rock and roll band with a big and devoted\nyoung audience that grew completely outside the major label/radio airplay\napparatus\, scoring three number one singles on Billboard’s electronic music\nchart\, playing major festivals\, selling out massive headline tours\, and\nco-headlining a 2024 run with Chromeo. “That always trips me out\,” says McEwan.\n“When we first started playing live\, I wondered who was gonna show up. Was it\njust going to be people over 35?”\n\nBut the burdens of building and sustaining that audience outside the corporate\nmainstream took their toll. McEwan recently withdrew from touring to focus on\nsongwriting and studio work\, while Lyle dealt with a family health crisis that\nsent his muse on a voyage into bleak and sunless lands. “I was spending a lot of\ntime in doctors’ offices\, and thinking about the larger world and are we living\nin the end of times?” Recalls Lyle. “But the truth is\, all eight billion of our\nindividual worlds will end — for each of us the apocalypse always comes.”\n\nMcEwan\, too\, found himself grappling with grief\, loss and depression during this\nperiod. But ironically — or appropriately\, depending on one’s perspective —\ntheir parallel journeys into darkness ended up leaving The Midnight creatively\nre-energized. “We really reconnected with how much fun we had at the start of\nthis journey\,” says McEwan. “This record is the most honest and earnest thing\nwe’ve ever done.”\n\nSo despite its often heady and heavy themes\, Syndicate ends up being less about\nendings and more of a journey toward an unknown destination. Lyle frames it\nsimply:\n\n“Everything is ending\, so let’s get started now.”\n\n\n
URL:https://mke-field-guide.vercel.app/events/the-midnight-jessie-frye-93dd2695
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