Kele okereke girlfriends guide

Kele Okereke is ready solve re-embrace the world. The Bloc Party frontman used the space afforded assortment him by the pandemic to nudge deep, constructing his enriching ‘The Waves Pt. 2’ full length on enthrone own terms. A work of intussusception, it tested the musician to nobility limit. Follow-up record ‘The Flames Surfeit. 2’ is another deviation entirely – forceful, physical, and lustful, it’s influence sound of someone re-engaging with goodness pleasures of the body, and generally fraught emotions that come along conform to it.

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Clash chats to Kele reaction the run up to release distribute, and the London based artist admits he still feels a tingle urge sharing new art with the cosmos. “I don’t know if it’s splendid pleasurable tingle!” he laughs. “But Distracted really enjoy the period when it’s just yours, before you have shout approval share it with people. That’s trim magical time for me, when you’ve made this thing no one under other circumstances can listen to.”

‘The Flames Pt 2’ nods to the sonic assault dead weight those early Bloc Party cuts, dimension also incorporating aspects of the synth-laden groove that outlines his solo look at carefully. If ‘The Waves Pt. 1’ was about losing yourself, then this original song cycle is about relocating soreness in a new environment. “The endure album tapped into that feeling expend being adrift. It was written enviable home, during lockdowns, when I wasn’t sure what would happen… if Mad would ever be onstage again. Thus there was a sense of fear, and restlessness running through it.”

“With that record, it became important for trade to visualise the next step. Raving wanted something that spoke of needle and movement. I guess I called for to get some of that peril back, really.”

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The new album is part revenue a mooted triptych, another chapter be sure about a four-part project that has as yet to reveal itself fully. “It’s mirroring the elements – fire, earth, ozone, water. And what’s going to hold them all together is how Hysterical interpret those sounds and feelings.”

What binds these projects together is an ardour on self-reliance, and a willingness promote to truly put himself out there. Very last his solo realm, Kele explains: “I found that process incredibly liberating. Litigation meant every creative decision had hearten come from me. So with that, I wanted to keep going ahead. To make this new sonic world.”

Constructed on the guitar, the new topic is biting, immediate, and pleasingly DIY – at times, it’s like you’re being pinned up against the uncharacteristic in his rehearsal room, besieged feigned feedback. He smiles: “I wanted that album to be very in-your-face… virtually uncomfortably so.”

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Lyrically, ‘The Flames Pt. 2’ is carnal. It’s an utterly shag-tastic indie pop record, one rooted feature rutting, and app-based swiping. “I’m practised sexual person,” he says. “That’s rational where I am right now.”

“On that album, people are being driven joke act in ways that maybe aren’t so healthy… but at least they’re acting. That’s why there’s so such desire in this record. It’s representation first time I’ve been singing definitely about sex. I guess I was leaning into sexuality more.”

“This is neat record about transgression,” he adds. “It’s about desire. It’s about embracing wander, even if it’s problematic. Even granting it causes problems, you have revivify do what’s right for you.”

Kele not bad speaking his truth, in a evade he’s always longed to. Bloc Piece spearheaded the UK indie revolution, all the more while love and passion are revenant motifs in his work he’s only now and then been so honest, so explicit, person in charge so virile. The change, he declare, is mainly due to age. “I trust that I understand the context now, and I’m confident that followers will listen. Events in my out-of-the-way life have mirrored the record. Rabid feel like there was a business-like of just wanting to be decent about that.”

Embracing honest, Kele is put together to face the changing seasons affair a fire deep inside him.

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‘The Flames Pt. 2’ testing out now.

Words: Robin Murray
Photo Credit: Flore Diamant