Kele Okereke Confirms New Bloc Party Album; Preview New Song “Exes”

Kele Okereke Confirms New Bloc Party Album; Preview New Song “Exes”

Silent Alarm just turned 10, but a decade hasn’t halted Bloc Party’s output. The band’s frontman Kele Okereke confirmed to Australia’s Triple J radio that a new album from the British indie rock group is on the way.

Okereke is in Australia touring in support of his solo album, Trick, and he spoke about the album to Triple J hosts Veronica and Lewis. Okereke said the group is in the recording phase for the album, which will be their fifth full-length.

“I guess it’s the first time that I have talked about it but we are making a record at the moment. It’s sounding like nothing that we’ve done before but that’s what everyone always says. We’re at the writing/recording phase. We’ve started recording — I think we have about 18 [song] ideas and we’re going to lay them down properly in the next few months.”

Okereke then previewed one of those song ideas, delivering an impromptu performance of “Exes” on the spot. You can listen to it below.

While that song may or may not make it onto the album, the 33-year-old musician said this record feels like an evolution, and very different from the group’s past work.

“We’ve always had very disparate elements to our music… this record feels like an evolution of where we were. So far there’s nothing that I can compare it to really in terms of other musicians, whereas in the past I always could — we were always trying to reference something else. I feel that this is very much our own record … I’m very excited by it.”

Okereke will also perform at Coachella this year, but said the new Bloc Party album will be his priority this summer. After that record, he plans to focus on collaborating with other musicians.

“I am keen to work for other people, that was the exciting thing with [solo albums] The Boxer and with Trick — working with other vocalists, [it’s] something that I found really inspiring. I think after this record that we make I’m going to try and step back and work exclusively with other people and see how that feels.”

So, probably early next year for that new Bloc Party album? It will follow up 2012’s Four. You can listen to the entire show here.

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