Bloc Party

"The modern university confers the privilege of dissent on those who have been tested and classified as potential money-makers or power-holders. A degree always leaves its indelible price tag on the curriculum of its consumer." - from 'Deschooling Society', Ivan Illich.

Bloc Party is an autonomous unit of un-extraordinary kids reared on pop culture between the years of 1976 and the present day. Like many such kids, between them they eventually concluded that their own attempts to imitate what had informed them could be construed as a worthy variation on the many forms that preceded. They do everything that's required to conform to the currently received ideas of what a band is: ostensibly to play instruments at the same time, but also have a title for the work created.

Kele picked up a guitar when his hands enabled him to do so and his brain gave him the inclination. Russell had already done as much beforehand when they met in 1998. In the fine print of music papers and in telephone conversations they enabled meetings with Gordon and Matt who also had ideas of some relevance to bring to the collective effort. In this sense a band was created.

Henceforth should follow a list of auteurs and musicians that figured in the formative minds of the four as they went about their work. But to do as much seems churlish in an already self-referential world. Suffice to say there would be no band without the efforts of guitar bands formed in British and American towns in the 70s, 80s and 90s, aswell as visionary writers and artists of various kinds whose work has informed the world and culture itself as it stands. The precise names are as good as any you can come up with, in fact probably much, much better.

Dim Mak Releases:
DM069 Bloc Party 12"/CD Street Date: September 14, 2004

Press

DIW Issue 21
Giant article with photos

Rockpile 112

Resonance 45

Dazed and Confused April 2004

The Fly July 2004

Billboard March 1, 2005

Chicago Tribune March 25, 2005
Thumping, bumping Bloc Party irresistible
Words:Greg Kot, Tribune music critic

On "Positive Tension," a song from Bloc Party's room-wrecking debut album, "Silent Alarm" (Vice), the British quartet announces its high expectations.
While a bass line trampolines over machine-gunning drums and guitars shadow-box with funk and noise, singer Kele Okereke yelps, "Something glorious is about to happen."
Something glorious? Bloc Party isn't quite there yet, but it's difficult to sit still while listening to "Silent Alarm," one of the young year's best debuts. The band will makes its first Chicago appearance Thursday at Metro.
"We had lots of ideas, but not necessarily the ability to execute them" when the multi-racial foursome first picked up their guitars and drums in earnest in 1998, says Okereke, who was born in Nigeria but grew up in East London. They were unified only in their conviction of what they didn't want to be, given their mutual disgust for the state of U.K. rock.
"A lot of it was really dull, uninspired," the singer says. "These acoustic-rock bands like Travis and Turin Brakes were basically rehashing Radiohead's `OK Computer' template, watering it down. It was almost a dare to make something dramatic, rousing and moving to counteract that."
Eager to tour the U.K. but frustrated by the lack of like-minded peers, Okereke read an interview two years ago with Alex Kapranos, the singer in the then-relatively unknown Scottish band Franz Ferdinand, and recognized a kindred spirit. He e-mailed Kapranos and asked to open a gig for Franz in North London. The Franz singer readily agreed.
"It was good to find somebody who I thought would be in a similar place," Okereke says. "As it transpires, I was misinformed."
It worked out anyway. "I thought they'd be a bit darker than they were, but I was impressed by their singles, `Darts of Pleasure' and `Take Me [Out],'" continues Okereke. "And though they were quite light, they did it in a good way."
Like Bloc Party, Franz fore-grounded rhythm, turning even the guitars into six-stringed versions of a drum as they transformed audiences from chin-stroking observers to madly dancing participants. Okereke and his bandmates could relate, because they'd gone through eight drummers before finally discovering Matt Tong.
"When we first started playing, we had a very rock-school drummer," the singer says. "He had a real aversion to thinking outside a certain way of playing. Matt had the ability to step back and see how his playing would relate to the song. It was critical for us, because even though we started out as a somewhat traditional guitar band we experienced a different side of music going to the clubs. Now rhythm is the most important part of our music; we have to get the feel of the drums right before we can come up with the rest of the arrangement."
"Silent Alarm" joins a wave of U.K. releases by the likes of Franz Ferdinand and Futureheads, echoing the adventurous British post-punk of the late '70s: Gang of Four, Wire, Public Image Ltd. Okereke claims to be less influenced by those bands than Radiohead, Blur and Smashing Pumpkins. The least-discussed influence, he says, is chart-topping R&B: Usher, Lil' Jon, Beyonce.
"I've stopped listening to guitar music in the last few years, because I think most rock bands are too comfortable imitating the sounds of the past," he says. "These bands are obsessed with being nostalgic, looking at what's happened 25, 30 years ago, rather than trying something new. I love that these R&B records are huge mainstream hits, yet they have all these avant-garde references in terms of sound. The idea of mixing complex ideas with huge chart success, I find that completely inspiring."
Okereke isn't giving up on rock, though. He's applying what he's learned from R&B to the guitar. "I still think the sonic potential of the guitar is unlimited," he says. "Most guitarists are completely obsessed with filling their space with sound, and they overplay. We're into giving each other space. At the same time, we hate that neat, orderly approach of one guy strumming along while the other guy plays a lead."
As outspoken as the singer is, he says the band isn't out to change the world. It's a philosophy distilled in the song "Pioneers," which cautions, "We will not be the first."
"It's absurd to think a band is something heroic," Okereke says. "There is nothing heroic about being a band or making music. Heroic is doing a job that you hate every day in an office to support your family. It's carrying on in the face of that."
Bloc Party aspires to be nothing more than a respite from the mundane, the singer says. "Rock should excite, should inspire. I want to push what a guitar-rock band can do. In that respect, we're just beginning."

Entertainment Weekly March 18, 2005

Spin April 2005

Entertainment Weekly April 2005

Venus Spring 2005

New York Post April 1, 2005

Villiage Voice April 6, 2005

Metro april 7, 2005

Billboard April 9, 2005

New York Times April 9, 2005

New York Post April 9, 2005

LMag April 12, 2005

Onion April 14, 2005

Urb April 2005

Urb April 2005 album review

Interview May 05

Urb May

Miami Herald 5/08/05
As hipster music fests go, Coachella's the king of America
Words: EVELYN McDONNELL;

In the VIP area of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, Kele Okereke is yet another star. The wiry, handsome, intense singer of the London band Bloc Party seems at once slightly diffident (an impression aided by his occasional stammer) and aggressive.
Okereke, 23, answers questions with a soft voice limned with impatience. It's the impatience of youth: of youngbloods weary of being compared by aging critics to decades-old artists. It's the restlessness of an artist feeling the first grind of showbiz, and of a talent on the edge of giving the kind of catalytic performance that hurtles careers past safe obscurity. Bloc Party's April 30 set in the California desert is a supernova, even amid a two-day festival saturated with stellar explosions.
''We want to be more than just another indie band with guitars,'' Okereke says beforehand, as such minor musical deities as Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and singer Katie Melua wander past, and such mega-celebs as Justin Timberlake, Cameron Diaz and Angelina Jolie reportedly orbit nearby, causing tabloid reporters fits.
''When I was 15, the music that was popular was Britpop: Elastica, Suede, Radiohead, Blur,'' says Okereke. ''What those bands taught me was you can pick and choose your influences; you're allowed to reference different styles. They had a revisionist approach to making records. They were looking at the past and making modern music.''
With M.I.A., the Secret Machines, the Faint, Rilo Kiley, Ben Watt, the Raveonettes, etc., Coachella provides one-stop shopping for the best new acts in rock, hip-hop and dance music (though this year 'Roo did beat 'Ella to Brazilian Girls and Heartless Bastards)...
But in what could be dubbed Velvet Underground Syndrome, the Leeds group's influence has far out-measured its fame. You could hear the Gang's progeny all over Coachella: in Sri Lanka-born rapper M.I.A's revolutionary shouts, New York quintet Radio 4's chunky guitars, Bloc Party's ''frenetic disco punk funk,'' as Okereke described his band's music during its Coachella set.
Just don't mention Gang of Four to Okereke.
''I've never liked Gang of Four,'' he says. ''They've never spoken to me. I'm perplexed and confused that people cite them as an influence. It suggests they don't really listen to our records. . . . Their sound is dry and brittle. Our sound is more haunting and bigger.''
Okereke does cite such other late '70s/early '80s acts as Public Image Ltd. and ESG as influences; like Gang and Bloc, those acts mixed dance rhythms with their punk energy. But he also says that A Rush of Blood to the Head, Coldplay's '02 album, ''permeated and suffused'' his consciousness while Bloc Party was making its debut, Silent Alarm. ''They play really solid, yearning stadium rock music.''
Preferring to see mellow, multimillion-selling Coldplay over Gang of Four is not the usual hipster pose. But Okereke prefers to rub against the grain. ''You should never shut your mind off to things.''
Besides, it's the mainstreamized Britpop of Coldplay that broke down American radio's defenses and allowed entry for the current British invasion, which won a glorious victory at Coachella. Kasabian, the Futureheads, Keane, M.I.A., Roni Size, Ben Watt: Lads and lasses were everywhere.
So were Americans. Sunday night the Faint, the Nebraska band that was unearthing Ultravox while Bloc Party, the Bravery and the Kills were still learning power chords, played a pogo-perfect set for those not interested in rehashing adolescent angst with Nine Inch Nails. Before Bloc Party, Dallas-via-New York trio the Secret Machines turned a crowded desert tent into a Pink Floyd planetarium freakout. Later, Rilo Kiley singer Jenny Lewis showed all the other starlets there's pop life beyond Hollywood.
The Coachella crowd may have been young, trim and seemingly engaged in a trendy T-shirt competition. But they were not too cool to wildly cheer. Tight schedules prevented encores, but M.I.A.'s fans would not be denied. Couples responded to Bloc Party's sexy exhortations by making out.

Rollingstone May 5, 2005

Jane May 05

People May 25, 2005

Skyscraper Spring 05

CMJ June 2005

LA Times 5/22/05
Are you ready to rock?!; London's hot new bands and cool venues, its energy, its edge. Long live the scene.
Words:Robert Hilburn

If all the connections worked, I figured I could make it by bus Tuesday afternoon from the FlyAway depot in Van Nuys to LAX for the overnight flight to London's Heathrow Airport, where I could race through customs to the Tube (stick with the Piccadilly Line, much cheaper than the express line), then on to King's Cross train station for a late afternoon ride to Leeds.
I could then book a hotel room at the Leeds City Station tourist office, walk to the hotel, change clothes and take a cab to the Metropolitan University student union -- just in time to catch one of England's hottest new bands, the Kaiser Chiefs, making a hometown appearance.
The Kaiser Chiefs, the night's attraction in Leeds, are part of a brigade of promising new British bands that also includes Bloc Party and Kasabian. Rolling Stone magazine has named the Chiefs one of the 10 bands to watch in 2005, and McCartney has called them "really cool."
There was an after-show party at a nearby club, but I passed. I'd been up for more than 30 hours and wanted to catch an early train to London. Van Morrison and Bloc Party were waiting.
The day had been lovely, sunny and in the low 60s, but the temperature inside the drab, grimy building felt like triple digits as Bloc Party took the stage.
Some English critics think Bloc Party could be the most substantial of all the new British bands, and the group played with authority. The Astoria audience seemed delighted as it left the theater -- and not just because of the fresh air.

Mean May 2005

The Denver Westword 5/19/05
Bloc Buster: Bloc Party's rapid ascent didn't happen overnight -- it just seems that way.
Words: Maya Singer

That was a song we wrote in the winter of 2002," says Bloc Party's Kele Okereke in the midst of a fitful, mostly mumbled explanation of how his song "Like Eating Glass" evolved. "It was kind of..." He stops, then starts again. "I'd heard a remix version of the Smiths song 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out' and..." He pauses again. "The important thing was to make something..."
Okereke isn't being cagey or purposefully ambiguous, as the leader of many super-hyped, over-interviewed bands such as Bloc Party often are. Rather, the dangling ellipses and pregnant pauses that punctuate his thoughts lead you to believe that he's searching for the precise, perfect, exactly right words. And when they emerge, they tumble out of his mouth as propulsively as the manic drumbeat that opens "Like Eating Glass."
"That remix of 'There Is a Light,' it just obsessed me," he begins again. "And I wanted to make a song like that, one that was aching and melodic and yet at the same time, insistent, with a real groove. That was the initial idea, and then it took us ages and ages to get it right. The drums, especially, they were..." Okereke falls off once more before finally offering, "We beat that song into shape."
Talk to Okereke for just a few minutes, and you'll begin to understand the way Bloc Party songs are made. The act's sound and its hypnotic, hyperactive live shows seem to be the work of either demon possession or divine intervention -- or possibly both. But when it comes to the Party's evolution, Okereke subscribes to a more Darwinian view.
"I guess you could say that the band started when I met Russell Lissak, our guitarist," he recalls. "This was in '98. I was in school at the time, and I knew I wanted to start a band, but I'd been playing with a few different guys who were all very..." Okereke stops for one of his characteristic pauses, then drops the thought entirely.
"What I liked right off the bat about Russell was his restraint," he says. "He paid attention to the little things. And I've always believed that making music is about observing the minute. The difference between a good album and an amazing one is in the details."
It was another two years before Bloc Party picked up its third member, bassist Gordon Moakes. By that point, both Okereke and Lissak had plunged themselves into the club culture of their East London neighborhood, an immersion that marked the group's first major progression.
"When Russell and I first started playing together," Okereke recounts, "we were doing mainly, you know, straight-up guitar rock. Or, if not quite straight-up, then certainly something very much influenced by what was in the mainstream around that time, bands like Blur and Radiohead. But when we started going to clubs, our whole approach changed. We were hearing atmosphere, space, rhythm in an entirely new way. It wasn't until Matt joined the band, though, that we were really able to explore those ideas."
Timekeeper Matt Tong, Bloc Party's newest member, came aboard in 2003. Although drummer issues are a rite of passage for many bands, the Party members' recruitment efforts are already legendary back in their native England: At one point, Okereke, Lissak and Moakes were so desperate to round out their rhythm section, they literally went knocking on doors. Giving up, however, was never an option.
"Matt recently told me that it was my drive that got him to join the band," Okereke notes with a rare laugh. "He'd been in a bunch of bands that weren't going anywhere, he said, but when he met me, he could tell I wasn't the type to screw around."
If Tong was looking for a workhorse band, he found it. And in turn, Bloc Party had discovered the key to its sound: a drummer with a genuinely inventive and expansive concept of "rock" drumming.
"We had become so focused on rhythm," Okereke notes, "on using new kinds of rhythms, on building songs around the beats, that it was essential that our drummer be able to run with our ideas. That's why it took so long for us to find one."
The long wait paid off. Mere months after Tong joined the band, in what's now another piece of Party lore, Okereke was emboldened to send a demo disc and cordial note to Alex Kapranos, frontman of Franz Ferdinand. The then-buzz band promptly anointed its successor by inviting Bloc Party to open at a show attended by more than a few music-industry heavyweights. For the public at large, the rest is history. For Okereke, though, the reality is a bit more complicated.
"Like I was saying, about 'Like Eating Glass,'" Okereke explains. "That song had been kicking around for about a year before we really started to make it work. And it was Matt joining that did it. But even then, it took us four months working on it in the rehearsal space before we were ready to play the song live, and then once we were playing it live, that changed the song again. And then it changed even more when we went into the studio."
"For me, a song is never finished," he goes on. "There's always some way to trim it down, refine it, play with the arrangement. I know a lot of bands operate more instinctively -- and absolutely, a lot of what we do begins and ends with instinct. But I don't see any reason not to take something that seems done but not quite...not quite right...and spin it on its axis, try it a whole new way. And if that works, if that's closer, then it's about the details again."
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a musician so myopically attuned to the nuance of his music, Okereke is at least as proud of the microscopics of his songs as he is of the impression they make overall.
"We work really hard to create something whole and coherent and special," he reveals, "but for me, it's often the little things that make me appreciate what we've done. Like, I remember the first time I listened to the playback of 'This Modern Love' -- I started crying right at the part where the backing vocals come in on the second chorus. I mean, it was so perfect -- so perfectly what we'd set out to make, a song that's, like, two people on the telephone, who can't touch each other, and as the song and the conversation progress, everything amplifies. What starts out small and static, just rhythm and vocals, intensifies the way that conversation intensifies, intensifies to the point where you have the guitars and the glockenspiel and the extra vocal tracks..."
He trails off again, but this time he's not searching for a word, or a phrase, or anything at all. He's obviously caught up in the moment, in the miracle of a million minute details adding up to something so infinite words can't contain it.
"It still gets me, that part," he concludes. "Even now, we've played that song hundreds of times, and sometimes when I hear that shift happen, it overwhelms me. It's always new. I mean, you have an idea of a song in your head, and then the first time you play it, it's different. And then you hear it differently in the studio, and differently again when you perform it live. The songs are always changing. The trick is paying careful attention to it all, so every time they change, you're keeping up."

Bloc Party Review
Pitchforkmedia.com.com

Bloc Party Review
mens.style.com

Zero June 2005
Review:Silent Alarm
Words: Larry Trujillo
Believe the hype. London's Bloc Party has delivered one of the most intellegent and competent indie-rock records of the year. Riding high on the critical acclaim of the disk's single, "Banquet," Silent Alarm incorporates every aspect of a masterpiece--clean, tight dance-rock guitar riffs, a drum and bass combo that synch up perfectly, the energetic, distinctive vocals of frontman Kele Okerere and an arsenal of skillfully crafted tunes that enable you to enjoy the records from track one through fourteen.
Bloc Party arrived so fast on the scene that little is known about the fouresome. Coming on the heels of Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads and Interpol can overshadow any talented newcomer but Bloc Party has managed to capture the hearts of danceclub DJ's and the more progressive radio station programmers across America. Audiophiles seeking a slightly more sophisticated record then that is being offered with bands such as the Strokes or White Stripes will be more satisfied with this major label debut.

Bloc Party Review
atlantamusicguide.com

Bloc Party Review
barnesandnoble.com

Gettoblaster #15
Interview
Words: P.Lantry
By the time you read this all the noise has probably died sown on Bloc Party having been "The Comin Of," "The Next Big Thing," or just "enter your tag line here." Is it, was it, deserving? The jury (real music listeners) may still be sequestered but the attorneys (music critics) have made up their final anayses on Bloc Party's music, which chillingly romps through its punk asethetics while blatantly showing off a penchant for catchy melodies.
There hasn't been much to say of the group aside from the music on their releases which stream from sources like Dim Mak and Vice, the often seem to keep a low profile. Being a bunch of middle class kids that have done well, garnering attention after being asked to perform with the likes of Franz Ferdinand overseas, it set the ball rolling on what was to come; namely a couple of releases filled with sounds of disaffected English youth weaned on pop culture.
"I would say we are working middle class," drummer Matt Tong offers up. "We're not coming from a situation where everything was handed to us." The quartet which is made up of singer/guitarist Kele Okereke, bassist Goron Moakes, guitarist Russell Lissak as well as Matt, all holds a varying love of music whose influences they blend to create what may not be so much a new sound but one that's just as captivating as its predecessor. When I ask both Matt and Kele if they care to cop to any influences, I'm hit with puzzled stares. "Cop to what? What do you mean?" Kele asks. I explain to him it's merely slang and/or a figure of speech and they both look at one another asking themselves, "Do YOU want to COP to any influences? How about you, do YOU want to COP?" Yeah, I'm the butt of a joke.
Regardless, I find that the Talking Heads, Kate Bush, Bjork, Kraftwerk, David Bowie, Dizzee Rascal, Anne Sexton, JG Ballard, Joy Division, melodic hardcore, Kubrick, Mogawai, British post-punk, Sonic Youth, Suede, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, New Order, The Smiths, Prince, Weezer, Escaflowne Polvo, Neil Young, Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, Dinosaur Jr. (the early stuff), pitch n' putt, AFC Bournemouth, Taco Bell, driving, summer, tennis, Richard Brautigan, Dead Meadows and Big Star all play an important role in the group. But, Taco Bell????

Modern Fix Issue 47

Fader Issue 29

Urb 125
"The UK’s brightest lights ignore the flags and take their good news straight to the people"

Urb December 2005
Best of 2005: Bloc Party Silent Alarm
Bloc Party took all the cool movies from indie-dance up to this point and lit off with a sense of glorious bombast not heard since U2 broke into the mainstream on a similar tip. Every time Kele shouts the lines, "I'm on fire!" ("Banquet") or "We've got crosses on our eyes" ("Like Eating Glass"), Bloc Party feels like the most important band in the world.

Urb December 2005

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