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21 August 2008 - After a surprise announcement on 19 August, Bloc Party's third album Intimacy is available for download from today (21 August), and the band say their decision wasn’t because their last album was leaked.
Their second offering, A Weekend in the City, surfaced months before its official release but speaking to Lamacq, frontman Kele Okereke insisted this wasn't the reason for the whirlwind release of this record.
He told 6 Music: “The leaking thing, I guess it was a bit harsh with A Weekend In The City but that really wasn’t a motivation for us doing it this way. It’s more the fact that we didn’t want to sit on the record for like six months again, which is what we’ve done with our previous records.
“And we thought, ‘the rule book has changed, why not put a record out?’ We have an international fan base of people that wanna hear our music so we know that they’re gonna go out and get it, so why not.”
The band say it was more about creating a buzz of excitement for fans.
Drummer Matt Tong said: “We did want to retain that sense of occasion so hopefully there will be at least a couple of people quite excited tonight before they go to bed - get that Christmassy feeling back in the Bloc Party camp.”
And everyone kept the secret with Matt saying that he was even lying to his mother’s face, which he said was, “horrible.”
Despite keeping schtum for so long about the speedy release, their turnaround after touring was quick.
Kele said: “I guess we got on it pretty hard in February. Touring finished in December last year for A Weekend In The City and then we had January off and then went back into the studio and we hadn’t really written any songs. That was the plan, actually to write in the studio.”
Its been rumoured that this record is quite electronic, but singer Kele Okereke insists otherwise.
“We haven’t made an electro record, the thing people forget about Mercury is that there’s a brass band on there as well, it’s not just bleeps and stuff,” he said about the new album’s sound. “This was our third record and I guess we’ve been listening to so much different music, it was just a case of trying to get as much influence from other forms of music as possible.”
He went on to reveal that Intimacy is; “not an electronic record at all, it’s not an experimental record, it’s like a pop record.”
Even with a ‘pop’ leaning, the band say the album details a stripped back sound, which was on their agenda when they went into the studio.
Kele revealed: “That was a conscious decision after A Weekend In The City, which was quite a layered record and a really textured record, and that isn’t a bad thing. But I think we all felt that we wanted to do something a bit rawer.
“That was definitely the brief with both sessions of different producers, was to make something that had a harder edge.”
To which Matt added: “I think right from the very outset we’d always vowed we would try and incorporate electronics into our music and by choosing to work with Paul Epworth and Jacknife Lee this time round, that was a further attempt to marry the two disciplines.”
The second single from the record, Trojan Horse got an exclusive first play here on Lamacq’s show last night (21 August) and you can listen again to their hub session.
Download the album now in mp3 format for £5 from Bloc Party’s official website.
The CD version of the record will be in stores from 27 September.
Georgie Rogers http://
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