Pitchfork

What do you get when you mix Ligeti, Isolée, Amerie, a dance-punk band, and a dude who has produced U2 and Snow Patrol? The new Bloc Party album!

On the phone from his London flat yesterday, head Bloc Partier Kele Okereke filled Pitchfork in on the status of his band's sophomore effort. "We haven't finished recording; I guess we're about halfway through," he said. The band was working in Dublin, Ireland until recently; they plan to finish the record later this summer after their upcoming North American tour.

Jacknife Lee is producing the album. In addition to his work with U2 and Snow Patrol, he's also produced Kasabian and Editors, remixed Pink, TLC, Run-DMC, and Christina Aguilera, and released his own big-beat techno albums. (Oh, and he used to be the guitarist in that post-grunge band Compulsion. We don't remember them either.)

When asked if Lee's dance music career has affected the sound of the record, Okereke replied, "We're really in the elementary stages of recording, but I think he's very up for shaking up how we finish things. So I'll know that by the end of the summer once the album has been recorded. It seemed we listened to the same sorts of things and our ideas seemed to be really on the same page."

Okereke said that Lee made him a mix CD of "tracks that he found inspiring", including "lots of classical, actually, lots of György Ligeti. I was really impressed by the use of dissonance and space and texture." The mix also included music by Isolée, and Amerie's "1 Thing", which Okereke called "one of my favorite songs of the last ten years."

He added, "I was literally obsessed with that song. The thing about that song, what I find really inspiring about modern r&b, is it really sounds like it was assembled on the computer, the pickings of samples and building the song around that. There's a sense where it seems to be just stuck together, and that's something that I'm hoping we can try to somehow bring out in the record that we're making. Essentially, yeah, we're a live band, but I'd like to get some bricolage going on."

While we'd love to hear what Rich Harrison could do with Bloc Party, one producer the band doesn't plan on working with in the near future is Paul "Phones" Epworth, who helmed their debut, Silent Alarm. "I think Paul's a great guy, a great producer, but it probably wouldn't have done us any favors working with the same producer two albums in a row," Okereke said. "We're trying to work with different people, it gives you different aspects of your sound, which is really crucial."

Okereke confirmed that the album will feature the songs "Waiting for the 718", "Uniform", "Perfect Teens" (formerly known as "Machine"), "England" (formerly "Blue Moon"), and "Song for Clay" (formerly "Merge on the Freeway"), inspired by the main character of Bret Easton Ellis' novel Less Than Zero. The songs "Cells Shaped Like Stars" and "Kreuzberg" are also being considered, but aren't definitely going to be included.

While the album title hasn't been confirmed yet, Okereke said that he has some ideas. "It's really, to me, very much an album about living in the city and I think a lot of the themes resonating on the record are pretty much about everyday living in the metropolis. So I guess the title's really gonna represent that for me."

He also mentioned that the band plans to bring in a string section and outside vocalists to contribute to the album. Strings and guests on a sophomore album?! Shocker!

Bloc Party hit the road later this month, traveling across North America before a couple of English festival dates.

Get this party started:

06-24 Toronto, Ontario - Olympic Island *+
06-25 Chicago, IL - Union Park (Intonation Festival)
07-28 Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion @#
07-29 Brooklyn, NY - McCarran Pool @#
08-01 Anaheim, CA - The Grove +$
08-03 Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theatre #+$
08-04 Berkeley, CA - Greek Theatre #+$
08-05 San Diego, CA - Street Scene Festival #
08-08 Mexico City, Mexico - TBA
08-09 Houston, TX - Warehouse Live #
08-10 Austin, TX - Stubbs BBQ #
08-19 Chelmsford, England - Hylands Park (V Festival)
08-20 Staffordshire, England - Western Park (V Festival)

* with Feist, Raising the Fawn, J Mascis
+ with Broken Social Scene
@ with Secret Machines
# with Mew
$ with Two Gallants