Bloc Party
Bloc Party are an English rock band, founded in London in 1998 under the name of Kele Okereke Angel Range and Russell Lissack. The name is an allusion to a " block party ", a name for a neighborhood party in the USA, in which plays a local band.
Band History
The band had their breakthrough, after the lead singer Kele Okereke was 2003 on a Franz Ferdinand concert and give both the Franz Ferdinand singer Alex Kapranos and BBC presenter Steve Lamacq a demo CD with She's Hearing Voices in the hand could. Then Lamacq played it on his radio show and invited them to play live in his mission.
Their album Silent Alarm came to number three in the UK album charts, the single So Here We Are at number five on the singles chart. The song Like Eating Glass was used in the game Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. The song was Banquet Helicopter in FIFA 2006 and Colin Mc Rae Dirt 2, Marc Ecko 's Getting Up in the EA game SSX on Tour: Contents Under Pressure, Guitar Hero III and Burnout Revenge and the comedy used Yes Man.
In the late summer of 2005 appeared with Silent Alarm Remixed, a remix version of the debut. This is what artists of the electro scene like Ladytron, M83 and Four Tet try on the pieces of Bloc Party. Besides covers Mogwai plan and Death from Above 1979 edit Luno. There is also a Deluxe Edition of Silent Alarm, which includes two more songs ( Little Thoughts and Two More Years ) and a DVD with music videos, live performances and a kind of reportage on or Bloc Party.
The second album A Weekend in the City, which was produced by Jacknife Lee, was published on 2 February 2007. The band wanted to Kele Okereke statement by no means a kind of Silent Alarm Pt. Publish 2, concerning the sound, it is their opinion, clearly electronic and experimental than the debut. The members of Bloc Party called as a major influence for A Weekend in the City, the experimental releases of the British band Radiohead. The reviews in the relevant magazines certify Bloc Party with this album a unique development. In interviews Okereke admitted to venture into his lyrics to a greater extent on political issues, especially some racist incidents in the UK were in favor of the trigger. The first single released in the UK The Prayer (B- Side: We Were Lovers ) and in the U.S. I Still Remember. Following the release of A Weekend In The City a mini tour took place across Europe. The song was Flux beginning of October 2007 presented and published as a new single. Strange it was the fact that singer Kele Okereke einsang the song in German. This version was released among others on a magazine Visions enclosed CD.
On 11 August 2008 the single Mercury appeared. As of 21 August, the third album Intimacy is available on the band's website in digital form. The album was released October 27, 2008 with additional tracks in the stores. The sound on the album is clearly influenced electronic than the previous two. For five concerts, the band came in the spring of 2009, after Germany. In June 2009, Bloc Party announced that a new single will be One More Chance on August 10. The song was not one to date, however, the album Intimacy and was produced by Jacknife Lee. However, Bloc Party announced to bring a re-release of her album Intimacy on the market, which then also should contain the single One More Chance.
Kele Okereke also announced the band had the time to release a fourth album no obligations on the part of their record company in the near future. The band would not have been put under pressure during the recordings in order to bring out a quality new album can. Followed in 2010 then a long pause, in which the four musicians went their separate ways. In June 2010, frontman Kele Okereke released his first solo album, titled The Boxer. Lissack joined the Irish band Ash at, Moakes became a father and started the band Young Legionnaire. After Okereke said in an interview that he had met the band by chance in front of a studio, without having been informed, came in the press rumors that the band would be looking for a new singer or dissolve altogether. Later Okereke cleared up, that his statement was no more than a joke. On January 3, 2012 Okereke announced in a BBC radio interview that Bloc Party are working on a new album.
The fourth album, simply titled Four, was released in Germany on 24 August 2012. Advance the Single Octopus was published. The album is again significantly rock -heavy than its predecessor Intimacy, yet with some hard guitar riffs, it differs from the debut Silent Alarm.
Style
The band's style is similar to the music of The Smiths, Joy Division, Sonic Youth, The Cure, Mogwai, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Radiohead, Gang of Four, Pixies, The Police and XTC, and is often compared in the press with Franz Ferdinand. However, giving members of the band to have only heard, for example, Gang of Four, after they had been named in the press as supposedly important influence. Nevertheless, one can rightly claim that Bloc Party have taken at least a portion of the outstanding styles of the 1980s, whose representatives were some of the bands mentioned above, or are, in their music. In October 2013, the compilation " Bloc Party Tapes" appeared, has compiled on the Kele pieces that he liked and influenced him.
Discography
Albums
EPs
- 2004: Bloc Party
- 2004: Little Thoughts EP
- 2007: Flux EP
- 2012: Four More EP ( exclusively for the Music Express)
- 2013: The Next Wave Sessions EP
Singles
Remix albums
- 2005: Silent Alarm Remixed
- 2009: Intimacy Remixed