Midnight Choir were a dark, abrasive post-punk band from Sheffield, emerging in the early 1980s from the same experimental underground scene that produced groups such as Artery and The Fall devotees across the North. Formed in 1983, the group blended jagged guitars, gothic atmospheres and surreal, often blackly comic lyrics into a sound that mixed Birthday Party-style intensity with distinctly Sheffield industrial gloom.
After Loukes died in a motorcycle accident, vocalist Ziggy Senkans joined and the band continued to evolve through a series of acclaimed underground releases.
Midnight Choir released records including Kiss (1983), Gideon Turtle and the Midnight Choir (1984), Halleluya? (1985), Wormbellygrin (1986) and Trussed By Buddha (1987). Their music gained support from influential BBC DJ John Peel, who played their records and invited them to record a Peel Session in 1987.
By the late 1980s the band renamed themselves Berserker Joe, pushing further into noisy, experimental territory before eventually splitting. Though never commercially successful, Midnight Choir became cult favourites within Sheffield’s alternative music history, remembered for their fierce live performances and bleakly inventive songwriting. A retrospective collection, Berserker Joe + Peel Session, appeared in 2013.
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