A rare Russell interview on LiveDaily: linkage
Labels: Interviews, Press
¶ 11:50 PM 3 comments links to this post
...can both be expected on the new album, according to a new post by Gordy on the 'Marshals' fan space, along with:
- Matt and Gordy playing drums simultaneously
- R'n'B-styled beats
- Russell's guitar put through a 'Big Muff' pedal
- The sound of a guitar amp being thrown off a first-storey balcony (!)
- An unplayable guitar solo
- Piano
- Glockenspiel
- Strings
My appetite for the new material has definitely been whetted by that news!
Go to 'Marshals' to read the post in full.
Labels: A_Weekend_In_The_City
¶ 11:43 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
Bloc Party return to the live scene this coming weekend, crossing the pond for a very special Olympic Island show on Saturday and a headline appearance at Chicago's Intonation Music Festival on Sunday.
Here's the schedule for the Olympic Island mini-festival:
Gates: 1:00pm
Raising The Fawn: 3:00pm
J Mascis: 4:15pm
Feist: 5:45pm
Bloc Party: 7:15pm
Broken Social Scene: 8:45pm - 10:45pm
On Sunday, Bloc will rock the Intonation Festival at 9:05pm (local time). For the full line-up, follow me.
Labels: Tour
¶ 1:12 PM 2 comments links to this post
A lot of names have been bandied about by Kele in recent interviews whilst talking about his influences for the second Bloc Party album. Here's a little guide to some of the more obscure references that have cropped up…
1. Philip Glass
Probably the most influential and commercially successful 'classical' composer alive today.
His music is usually described as 'minimalist' and is 'based on the extended repetition of brief, elegant melodic fragments that weave in and out of an aural tapestry.' Glass's repertoire includes music for opera, dance, theatre, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and film, such as the 'Einstein on the Beach' opera and soundtracks for 'The Truman Show' and 'The Hours'.
Listen: Philip Glass Ensemble - 'Music in 12 Parts (Part 10)'
Listen: Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra - 'Symphony no.2 (3rd movement)'
Find out more: PhilipGlass.com
2. Amerie's '1 Thing'
Booty-shaking, live-drum-sampling, indie-kid-pleasing song by the American R&B singer. 2005's 'Crazy In Love'.
In Kele's words: "One of my favourite songs of the last ten years. I was literally obsessed with that song. The thing about that song, what I find really inspiring about modern R&B, is it really sounds like it was assembled on the computer, the pickings of samples and building the song around that. There's a sense where it seems to be just stuck together, and that's something that I'm hoping we can try to somehow bring out in the record that we're making. Essentially, yeah, we're a live band, but I'd like to get some bricolage going on."
Listen: Amerie - '1 Thing'
3. György Ligeti
Avant-garde Hungarian composer
Best known for his pieces which feature prominently in the Stanley Kubrick films 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut. His work has an Eastern European flavour and is 'often expressed in a complex rhythmic style in which conflicting layers of tempos are used to drive the music forward'.
In Kele's words: "I was really impressed by his use of dissonance and space and texture."
Listen: Le Grand Macabre: 'Carhorn Prelude', 'Dialogue of the two ministers', 'Drink, Up!'
Find out more: Gyoergy-ligeti.de
4. Less Than Zero
The first novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1985.
The new Bloc Party tune, 'Song For Clay' is about the main character in this book, a rich young college student who returns to his hometown of Los Angeles for the winter break. Clay subsequently becomes bored and turns to drugs and cheap thrills to keep him occupied, resulting in further boredom. This dizzying spiral of desperation takes him to relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs as he seeks inner direction.Buy the book: Amazon
Find out more: Wikipedia
Throw in the more well known artists cited as influences by Kele (Bjork, Dizzee Rascal, Roxy Music, David Bowie and DJ Shadow) and you have an extremely rich range of musical and literary reference points...hopefully making for a diverse and eclectic second album!
Labels: A_Weekend_In_The_City
¶ 2:24 PM 8 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
Some more recordings of the new songs have surfaced, thanks to a bootleg of Bloc's set at the Fabric nightclub in London on March 16th 2006.
Gorge away!
01. Waiting For The 7.18
02. She's Hearing Voices
03. Banquet
04. This Modern Love
05. Machine
06. Two More Years
07. Uniform
08. Like Eating Glass
09. So Here We Are
10. Helicopter
11. Encore
12. Cells Shaped Like Stars (first live recording...the filename is incorrect!)
13. Price Of Gasoline
14. Blue Moon
15. Little Thoughts
Thanks to methadone from A.N.D!Labels: Audio
¶ 1:49 AM 17 comments links to this post
Bloc Party will venture into Portugal for the first time this summer...they've been confirmed to play at the 'Paredes de Coura' festival, which takes place from August 14th to August 17th.
edit: Bloc Party will play on Wednesday August 16th.
Labels: Tour
¶ 12:48 AM 8 comments links to this post
