KELE of Bloc Party fame...

[Jen Appel]

Hi folks!
Hope you're all super amazing. : >
Wanted to just make sure you got and have been listening to the new KELE solo album, Trick, which is coming out on Oct 14th.  Trick is Kele from Bloc Party's second solo album, and much more dance-centric than his first, The Boxer, which came out in 2010.  The vibe is classic early UK dance sounds here, which suits Kele EXTREMELY well.

I'd love to chat about a review of the album or a conversation with Kele if you're keen to have one.
More info about the album is below - let me know what you think!!
xJA


After Bloc Party finished touring their triumphant album Four, Kele Okereke, always keen to expand his musical horizons, immersed himself in a new career as a DJ. Looking out from the DJ booth at 4am, in dance clubs from Cologne to Sydney, he saw the effect of the minimal tech house he was playing on the dancers. "Dancefloors are still transformative zones," says Kele. "People let go of whatever baggage they're carrying. I was watching people get together, and those kinds of interactions were very much the backdrop to what I was thinking my next record should be about. I just wanted to make a record that had a late-night feel."
The result is Trick, which took shape over two years in London and New York. It's Kele's second solo album after 2010's The Boxer which, as he says, was "hands in the air". Trick has replaced that album's euphoric, pulverizing textures with a sound that is airy, refined and elegant - but unabashedly lithe, sexy and nocturnal. "There are two kinds of actions on the record," says Kele. "Songs like First Impressions, Coasting and My Hotel Room are really about those initial sparks of desire you feel when you look at someone across a dancefloor or that kind of intangible attraction.  With Stay the Night and Humour Me you get the opposite side of those experiences when that feeling of comfort has been taken away. I guess the record really charts that moment of initial attraction through to the dissolution of the relationship."
The album took shape over two years. Kele started work on it in 2012 when he was touring; the final clutch of songs were written at the beginning of this year. Some tracks were produced in Brooklyn with the help of Alex Epton of the XXXChange, who worked on The Boxer, but the record was completed in London. Trick also boasts two top-flight female singers; Yasmin Shahmir, who sang on Real by Gorgon City and who brings a knowing sexiness to First Impressions, and Jodie Scantlebury, whose vocals on Closer are intimate and deeply soulful. However, it's Kele's record - a deeply personal journey into night; the pulse and exuberance of clubland and something of its yearning loneliness too - the comedown after the euphoria of the dancefloor, the longed-for relationships that don't last beyond the ephemeral thrill of the night. "It feels like a sexier record for me," says Kele. "Lusty almost."
First Impressions has an almost jazzy feel; Coasting rattles along to muffled drums. "We made sure to keep the higher frequencies out of the record," says Kele. "With Bloc Party it was all about treble, sounds being piercing and penetrating, and I didn't want that kind of experience - I wanted a sound that enveloped, rather than assaulted the listener."
The title Trick is American slang for a one-night stand. "When I was living in New York, lots of my friends would refer to people they'd slept with as tricks. I'd never really heard that expression before. It stuck with me, this idea of deception that you were complicit in, knowing that an experience you were having wasn't going to go any further but you were invested in it."
Kele's voice, meanwhile, has never sounded more flexible, supple and seductive. "I was backing away from some of the vocalizations that I'd been associated with in the past," says Kele. "I wanted something that felt more tender and intimate. You have to keep finding something new in yourself every time you make a record. Not everyone does, but I do."
Trick comes on the heels of two house EPs Kele released on Crosstown Rebels: Heartbreaker and Candy Flip. Unlike Trick, they were precision tooled for the dancefloor: "It wasn't about writing songs, more evoking moods, whereas this record, though some of the sonic textures were similar I was conscious that I was writing songs, that I was telling stories."
Consciously or not, rather than remaining in the same vein as his house EPs, Kele was reacting to the abrasive textures of the previous Bloc Party album. "I wanted to do something that was in a completely different space. Four was heavy, intense, almost metal in places. I feel like I've been oscillating between records all my career - A Weekend in the City was a reaction to Silent Alarm, which was a reaction to the Banquet EP we put out where everyone thought we were going to sound like Gang of Four. You keep going backwards and forwards but it's fun - the challenge now is where I go next."
Listening to Trick, almost entirely electronic apart from a smattering of guitar on Coasting and Closer, you might imagine that Kele has abandoned rock music for good. "I haven't shut the door on indie music, I'm just not hearing any that's challenging me," he says. "That's not to say it doesn't exist. Having been in a band for 10 years, when I hear an indie song on the radio, I immediately hear exactly what they have done in terms of arranging and instrumentation. Whereas now, if I listen to DJ Koze or the Todd Terje record, I don't know how it was done and I'm desperate to find out. That's something that I need as a songwriter - to put myself in situations where I'm having to figure it out."
Trick is the sound of a singular artist still pushing himself 10 years since his first release and still with so much to say. This is his first "post-clubbing" record. "It feels a lot more laid back, like a pre-chillout experience. After the euphoria and after the drugs have worn off, there's the fear and an introspection - that's where the record sits for me." And it's a record that will endure long after the hangover has lifted - truthful, subtle and shimmering.

Jen Appel
PRESS HERE (New York)
138 W. 25th St., 9th Floor, New York, NY 10001
P: (212) 246-2640
jen at pressherepublicity.com<mailto:jen at pressherepublicity.com>

PRESS HERE (Los Angeles)
8105 West Third St., Los Angeles, CA 90048
P: (323) 556-9752

 www.twitter.com/presshere<http://www.twitter.com/presshere>
Click to view website:

<http://www.presshere.com/>[cid:image001.jpg at 01CD8066.258ADF10]<http://www.presshere.com/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.pressherepublicity.com/pipermail/ph-electronic/attachments/20140903/bbc89927/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 1747 bytes
Desc: image001.jpg
URL: <http://lists.pressherepublicity.com/pipermail/ph-electronic/attachments/20140903/bbc89927/attachment.jpg>