To mark the run-up to the physical release of 'Intimacy' next Monday, Bloc Party have taken over The Guardian's music page for the whole week. Feast your eyes and ears on this lot...(updated!)
- Kele is the resident agony aunt for the week, so send in your life problems (he's specifically asked for sexy questions) to this address for some fine nuggets of worldly wisdom.
- Listen to an exclusive Pin Me Down remix of 'Ares' here, featuring a brand spanking new chorus sung by Milena Mepris.
- Bloc Party's musical map of London...Gordy's guide to the places that made them as a band.
- In pictures: Bloc Party during the filming of 'Intimacy'.
- Watch Bloc Party perform 'Halo' live in the studio.
Bloc Party's Radio 1 Live Lounge cover of Nelly Furtado's 'Say It Right' (recorded last April) is featured on the 'NME Awards Souvenir' CD free with this week's NME, on sale today!
And tomorrow (Thursday), the Bloc play their first gig of the year - the NME Big Gig in the O2 Arena - as part of a stellar lineup (see below). Will the boys roadtest any new material? Send in your setlists!
Schedule:
The Cribs: 7-7:20pm
Klaxons: 7:30-8pm
Bloc Party: 8:10-8:50pm
Kaiser Chiefs: 9-9:45pm
Manic Street Preachers: 10-11pm.
Edit: This week's NME also features a short interview with Kele...read it below!
Labels: Other_releases, Press, Tour
¶ 12:01 AM 2 comments links to this post
Labels: Pin_Me_Down, Press
¶ 6:57 PM 2 comments links to this post
Labels: Press
¶ 10:57 AM 5 comments links to this post
'A Weekend In The City' is either a 'beautifully complex and beguiling sophomore effort' or a 'grim affair' depending on where you read. Most reviews seem to fall somewhere in the middle, with a current score of 67 on Metacritic ('Silent Alarm' has 82). This blog has a nice little summary of the critics' reactions.
You can also check out a whole bunch of reviews here.
Labels: A_Weekend_In_The_City, Press
¶ 10:15 PM 5 comments links to this post
Labels: A_Weekend_In_The_City, Interviews, Press, Videos
¶ 4:47 PM 4 comments links to this post
An article from the NME Yearbook 2006...Kele and electro-folk wunderkind Patrick Wolf chat about Lily Allen, placenta soup and, like, stuff.
Thanks to Jay from the Patrick Wolf LiveJournal community.
Labels: Press
¶ 12:27 AM 17 comments links to this post
Best music website in the world™, Drowned In Sound, turns 6 this year, and to celebrate it has named its favourite 66 albums of the last 6 years. Bloc Party's 'Silent Alarm' is at number 3 in the list, behind At The Drive-In's 'Relationship of Command' and Björk's 'Vespertine'.
Here's what DiS has to say about SA:
"It begins with every instrument given a few seconds of sole recognition, with every member of the collective force teasing you and opening door after door ‘til some snake-like tunnel of blinding lights comes alive with the final instrument: the echoey flames of Kele’s voice playing with the various shades of the human condition and the half-thoughts of a generation. From then on in it is all surreal snapshots of crosses on eyes, manifesto slogans, cut ’n’ pasted sound bites from newspapers and the detritus of modern society blending into one resilient mêlée of contradictions of hope and fear.
'Silent Alarm' is notably both the highest placed debut and British album in Our 66. Its success was no accident. It’s an album full of anthems that remind you of falling out of clubs covered in body sweat - some of which is your own. There are those guitars on ‘Positive Tension’ which claw the plastering from historical monuments as-heard-on-The OC, before the strings bend until they're as celestial as mercury. Aside from the radio-friendly dancefloor bass 'n' drums, this album has such added depth in the slower moments with graceful sweeping snowstorm soundscapes as-heard-on-Shipwrecked (‘So Here We Are’). It’s within the quieter moments where the all-over goose bumps raise themselves every single time you return to this album.
Not only is this album the finest debut album of the past six years, it’s also one of the most poignant, with as much glitter as war dust in the corners of its eyes. We can't go any further in talking about this without mentioning Paul Epworth's forward-leaning production: you don't need a degree in sound engineering to feel the textures and emotions this album conjures and pours upon its audience impeccably before begging for repeated inspection. The production suss adds a futuristic feeling to the album and raises the songwriting and the band’s inventiveness to another level. Their success is not measured only in terms of sales but also in the waves of inspiration which this album sent through the intelligentsia, from art scenes to fashion worlds and beyond. This album not only made people post blogs, send ridiculous demanding mail-outs and pick up pens to write amazing things about it but has, we’d imagine, played an integral part in last year being the biggest year for guitar sales ever. And it probably encouraged some haircuts, too.
Where this record truly began was a small band posting on our messageboard, the poster looking for band members; the new four-piece, then called Union, subsequently played at a few DiS nights. The rest is history. Not that this is about bigging ourselves up, and the band’s roots don’t serve to lend bias to this decision at all: this is an amazing debut album which can claim a level of restraint and clarity and still contains a brave vision beyond almost everything else in the list. For every style-over-substance record which the world’s self-imposed bastions of taste may claim is better, and for every indie elitist snob who’d prefer the songs were full of bird noises which never really started who'll somehow claim this is too derivative and for every music fan, there's a melody, a poignant line, a historical monument of a riff, a sweat-dripped drum solo, a head-thrusting bass-line and a graceful ice-cap of a soundscape. There’s even a moment either on TV, at a festival or that thing called Real Life that this record binds itself to like a pearl to its oyster.
If you don’t own and cherish this record already, you know what to do. DiS Bless Bloc Party."
Update:
Ever the gentleman, Kele emailed DiS from Japan to say thank you:
"Thank you very much DiS. It's slightly odd receiving plaudits now for 'Silent Alarm', as mentally I am completely over what that record meant to me. It is still flattering though, and I am pleased that it seemed to mean something to you guys as well.
We have just finished our new record and I have been thinking about it obsessively for the last two years. I can not tell you how great it feels to be out of my head on a disc that i can listen to. Silent Alarm was a starting point for Bloc Party, but there is far more that we can do as a band, which I guess you are about to find out."
Labels: Press, Silent_Alarm
¶ 2:56 PM 0 comments links to this post
So says Mr. Okereke about 'A Weekend In The City', and I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean in the Norwegian black metal sense of the phrase. The new upgraded Bloc are faster, harder and more streamlined, merging influences from all over the musical map to create a collection of songs which, according to the press release, is 'stunning, intense and brilliant'.
Here's a few choice cuts from this week's NME interview with Kele about 'AWITC'.
- "We wanted to make something that references some of the great contemporary electronic music that's being made without also losing the industrial energy of rock music."
- "With 'The Prayer' the idea was to do something interesting with the rhythm. It's got a real, almost crunk feel to it. I know that's probably gonna frighten people, but it's still us."
- About 'Song For Clay': "I wanted to try and make something that was a really melodramatic-sounding rock song, almost like a Bond theme. Something that sounded really kind of lush. When it kicks in I think it's going to knock some heads off!"
- About 'On': "It's about the lure of drugs, getting drunk and dancing all night. Whenever I hear it, I completely lose myself."
And finally, here's the rather poetic press blurb:
"'A Weekend in The City' is inspired by lead singer Kele Okereke's interest in what he calls 'the living noise of a metropolis'. On 'Weekend...', the band captures every detail, from the ebullient to the mundane, of daily life in a modern city, and the quiet desolation that suffuses everything from commuting to casual sex, from going out on a Friday night to the long ride home in the early hours of the morning. These are songs desperate to understand the meaning that pulses under the moments of our everyday: they are bursting with tension, paranoia, sadness, love and an intense need for reason as to how city life has become so displacing."
So what's the general consensus? Très exciting stuff, non? Or do you not like the sound of this new direction...?
Tickets for the 20-date UK tour go on sale from 'Marshals' at 9am tomorrow morning, and on general sale a day later. Brrrrap! (Sorry, just getting into the crunk mood!)
Labels: A_Weekend_In_The_City, Interviews, Press
¶ 2:45 PM 6 comments links to this post
A pretty funny audio interview from the San Diego Street Scene festival in August...enjoy!
Listen
Labels: Interviews, Press
¶ 11:37 PM 4 comments links to this post
Yet another article to ramp up anticipation for the new album:
MTV News
Labels: A_Weekend_In_The_City, Press
¶ 10:46 PM 2 comments links to this post
There's a big news feature in this week's NME on the new album, including a first listen to four of the new tracks:
'A Prayer To The Lord': An industrial rhythm and choral sounds open this huge-sounding song, which proceeds through massed backing vocals and some highly-complicated drumming to resolve itself in a very beautiful, synth-sodden conclusion.
'Hunting For Witches': This intense song begins with the sound of someone twirling through a radio dial before Okereke announces: "I'm sitting on the roof of my home with a shotgun". The angry lyric continues: "The Daily Mail says that the enemy's among us/Stealing our women and taking our jobs".
'On': Sexy, cold and druggy, this is several steps on from 'This Modern Love', the 'Silent Alarm' song it most resembles. Okereke sings about "a certain cleanliness and clarity" before adding "you make my tongue loose" over lavish strings and feedback.
'It Started In An Afternoon': Featuring electronically treated vocals which make Okereke sound female, this song sounds as confident and epically uplifting as U2 and boasts a sparklingly catchy guitar line.
Also, in a V Festival preview article, Kele describes 'Uniform' as "huge", saying that he recorded around 100 vocals tracks for it, and that everyone else sings on it too. (Even Russell?!)
The new material is "dark, bigger and quite abrasive" with "a lot of interplay and a lot of detail"...the album is going to reward repeated listenings. The lyrical content is more personal to Kele this time around...'Where Is Home?' deals with the idea of being a second-generation black person in this country and other inspiration comes from the London bombings and the fatal stabbing of Kele's 18-year-old cousin, Christopher Alaneme, in a racist attack.
Speaking about the ambitious nature of Bloc Party's new sound, Kele says: "It's not enough for me just being a four-piece rock band. You're only limited by your imagination in this industry and when you realise that, that's when classic things can happen."
The article ends with the mention of a UK tour later this year to give people a chance to hear the new songs.
Labels: A_Weekend_In_The_City, Press
¶ 11:11 AM 6 comments links to this post
In recent interviews, Bloc Party have distanced themselves from the dance-punk movement which they helped to create. But...it looks like the band have re-embraced the medium of dance, albeit in a very different fashion. One of the new songs set for inclusion on album number two takes its inspiration from a dance that originated in Spain in the late 18th century...the bolero.
Originally called 'The Bolero', the title of the new song has since been changed to 'A Prayer To The Lord'. Speaking to AOL Music, Kele had this to say about the track: "It's gonna shock a lot of people. It's about dancing and passion and the main feature is stomping [and] hand claps, which is one of the signature features of the bolero dance."
To make things even more interesting, Kele was influenced by Busta Rhymes: "The initial idea came from watching the Busta Rhymes video for 'Touch It', where there are these young majorettes that are going through this kind of cheer pattern. I thought that was one of the most amazing things I'd heard, and I wanted to write a song that revolved around that sort of idea." Watch it here.
Whether the bolero will catch on across the nation's indie dancefloors remains to be seen. Maybe this will spark a revival of traditional dance throughout alternative music. Coming soon...the Kaiser Chiefs incorporate Russian Cossack dancing into their live show and Thom Yorke announces his profound love of the Venezuelan waltz. Get thee to the local ballroom!
Labels: A_Weekend_In_The_City, Press
¶ 6:46 PM 0 comments links to this post
SomethingGlorious.com, a blog inspired by a song well known around this neck of the woods, managed to secure an exclusive interview with Kele just before Bloc Party's headlining appearance at Chicago's Intonation Festival last month.
As is usually the case with independent blogs, the interview is both insightful and original, focusing on the music and giving Kele plenty of time to lay out his vision for album number two. Read it here. This interview also adds weight to the growing movement that suspects Kele of working for Amerie's record company, after Mr. Okereke delivers yet another speech on the merits of '1 Thing'. (Note: the movement currently consists of me, my Dad and the bloke from across the road who smells of wee. To sign up, contact i_believe_in_the_amerie_conspiracy@gullible.com).
Also, there's an interview with Kele and Matt in the current issue of 'Relevant' magazine, kindly transcribed for your reading pleasure.
Labels: Interviews, Press
¶ 10:40 PM 2 comments links to this post
A rare Russell interview on LiveDaily: linkage
Labels: Interviews, Press
¶ 11:50 PM 3 comments links to this post
A Toronto Star article/interview with some more hints about the sound of the new album...
The main aim in writing, he says, was "to distance ourselves from the sound that people assumed we had" and he enthuses about basing songs around samples and sound effects.
"That was always the intention, to be in a rock band that alluded to more than just the Velvet Underground or Led Zeppelin," he says. "For me, this band is about mixing ideas from contemporary dance music and contemporary R&B and electronica and somehow trying to find a happy medium because that really is a lot of the music that really inspires me. It's not your big rock bands. So with this record I'm trying to make that clearer because I'm not quite sure how clear that was on the first record."
Read the full article here.
Labels: A_Weekend_In_The_City, Interviews, Press
¶ 1:26 PM 0 comments links to this post
Speaking exclusively to Pitchfork, Kele has revealed that Bloc Party are about halfway through the recording of their sophomore effort.
He confirmed that the new album will feature the songs 'Waiting for the 7.18', 'Uniform', 'Perfect Teens' (formerly known as 'Machine'), 'England' (formerly 'Blue Moon'), and 'Song for Clay' (formerly 'Merge on the Freeway'), inspired by the main character of Bret Easton Ellis' novel Less Than Zero. The songs 'Cells Shaped Like Stars' and 'Kreuzberg' are also being considered, but aren't definitely going to be included.
Kele also mentioned that Bloc Party plan to bring in a string section and guest vocalists to contribute to the album!
To read the full article, go here.
Labels: Press
¶ 10:57 PM 2 comments links to this post
A little update from Matt on the band's progress in the studio, first posted over on 'Marshals'...
"Sorry we're so tardy with this 'weblog' thing, we're somewhat busy, what with a second album to make and all. With regards to progress on that front, I'll keep it succinct - there's nothing worse than reading a band's running commentary on the recording process; 'Yeah, it's great - we're playing congas strapped upside down to the ceiling... best album yet... "experimental"... blah blah flipping blah,' and then it turns out more lame-arsed than a field recording of Fern Cotton slipping over a dog turd on her weekly shopping run to Morrisons on a wet Tuesday morning. Actually, that would be kind of funny. So let's just say the studio's great, we love Ireland, everyone is happy and the process thus far has been decidedly unrocky and free-flowing. Fun even. Who would have thought that?"
No sign of difficult-second-album-syndrome so far then!
In other news, Russell swam 20 lengths this morning, ate a massive breakfast, felt sick and then caused the accidental explosion of Gordy's head through the overuse of delay pedals.
Labels: A_Weekend_In_The_City, Press
¶ 12:06 AM 4 comments links to this post
Here's a scan of a Bloc Party front cover and article, from the March/April 2006 issue of Rockpile.
Scanned by spongerika from the Bloc Party Livejournal Community.
Labels: Press
¶ 2:47 AM 4 comments links to this post
