Hello there!

Today we hosted our very first live webchat on our site. If you were there you’ll know it got pretty messy (well, busy at least).

We announced our third album, ‘Intimacy’ which is available to pre-order now. If you pre-order the album now, you’ll get the digital version of the album THIS Thursday (21 August), and the CD on the 27th of October with new tracks.

You can order the album from our shop now.

The tracklist for the album is:
01. Ares
02. Mercury
03. Halo
04. Biko
05. Trojan Horse
06. Signs
07. One Month Off
08. Zephyrus
09. Better Than Heaven
10. Ion Square

That’s all for now.
Bloc Party

http://www.blocparty.com/

After the Dalek-in-a-blender experimentalism of ‘Mercury’, ‘Trojan Horse’ signals a return to the full-bore punk-funk riffing of ‘Banquet’ and ‘Helicopter’.

The difference is, this time guitarist Russell Lissack has bought an effects pedal that makes his guitar sound like a swarm of angry robot wasps - and he uses it to fire off a thrilling, and uncharacteristically venomous, solo at 2.20.

Lyrically, the song finds Kele Okereke brooding on the wreckage of an atrophied love affair, and features the attention-grabbing opening line “You used to take your watch off before we made love”, which triggers all sorts of interesting mental images, and makes us wonder if the song title is some kind of cheeky double entendre.

‘Trojan Horse’ is taken from Bloc Party’s third album, ‘Intimacy’, which is being rush-released this coming Thursday (August 21).

You can listen to it now on the NME Media Player.

What do you think?

http://www.nme.com/theoffice 

As part of Steve Lamacq’s run up to Reading and Leeds this weekend, Bloc Party will be appearing live on his programme this wednesday.

From 4pm check out an interview and live session from the BBC 6music HUB

Listen via Digital Radio/TV or online at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/steve_lamacq/

Or….listen again via the website for a week afterwards

Top tune … frontman Kele Okereke

BLOC PARTY – Mercury.

With a harsh, cut-up vocal sample and similarly discordant attitude, Kele’s heroes have ditched the layered guitars for punky rhythms and gloomy synths. A bold step.4

http://www.thesun.co.uk/

Vice UK Events Manager Claire Bartolomeo is pretty much the best blagger in the business. She’s on every guest list, gets great stuff sent to her for free, and also moonlights as international superstar DJ. Sometimes, after she finishes up in the office, Claire hops on a flight to Ibiza, plays records to whooping clubbers, flies back at 5AM, and then skips back into work the next day. Last week she flew out to Japan with her BFF Kele Okereke from Bloc Party, who were over there to play the Fuji Rock Festival. Here’s her photoblog. She also took this pretty intimate video clip of Bloc Party as they huddled/cuddled just before hitting the stage and performing to 100,000 Japanese kids.

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Artists: Super Furry Animals, Bloc Party, Sex Pistols, Neon Neon

Words: Mike Diver
Posted: 22 Jul ‘08, 17:54

Gruff Rhys (pictured), vocalist with Super Furry Animals and the Mercury-nominated Neon Neon, has backed Kele Okereke’s claims that the Bloc Party singer was the victim of an unprovoked attack at the weekend.

Following yesterday’s news that Okereke was beaten up by Sex Pistols vocalist John Lydon’s entourage in Barcelona, at the Summercase Festival, and Lydon’s subsequent statement suggesting the Bloc Party man should “grow up and learn to be a true man” and that his band were “jealous fools“, Rhys has spoken to MTV News:

“It was horrific. Kele is a very brave man and what he said is exactly what happened.

“The statements Kele has said are absolutely true. It did happen.”

On DiS yesterday, a member of a band that witnessed the attack commented:

“It was total chaos. It got out of hand so fast. The Spanish security guards were total thugs. Our tour manager was put in a headlock after asking the security to let us go as we had a flight to catch to England. I managed to sustain a knee injury at some point which was remarkable given that I barely got involved.”

The case, it seems, is far from closed.

http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/3706129

British rocker John Lydon has denied allegations that members of the Sex Pistols’ entourage assaulted and racially abused singer Kele Okereke.The BBC said Okereke, frontman for the British indie rock group Bloc Party, accused members of the crew for Lydon’s band of attacking him after he approached Lydon backstage at the Summercase music festival in Barcelona and asked Lydon if he had considered reforming his old band, Public Image Ltd.

Okereke told the BBC the assault, which included punches to his face and head, was “unprovoked” and left him with a split lip and bruises.

He also described Lydon as “intimidating and aggressive,” and said someone in Lydon’s group told him, “Your problem is your black attitude.”

“I feel very sorry for a man that needs to lie about what was a perfect evening,” Lydon, who goes by the stage name Johnny Rotten, said in a statement issued to the BBC.

“After the show, John Rotten and management remained behind to sign autographs, which we did for four solid hours without incident and had a great time talking to other Spanish bands. This seems to have sparked jealousy in certain bands. The trouble was brought to us, resulting in those causing the trouble being physically removed by festival security.”

http://www.upi.com

‘Mercury’ has been added to the MTV Chart as one of this week’s Hot New Ones.

You can vote for it here.

http://www.blocparty.com/news.php?newsID=343

Hello dear friends and comrades

A little bit of news for you ahead of the US tour, our first tour in some eight months. To have been away from the winding road of touring so long is a pretty big deal for us, considering we’ve spent most of the last four years playing our skewed R’n'B meltdown with barely so much as a pause for a cup of tea between shows. But the time has come to stretch the gig legs and break out the spandex once more.

Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to join the boys during the next month or so of touring. The reason for this is that my wife is expecting our first baby in a few weeks and after some long hard thinking we all decided, band included, that it was a bit silly for me to be flying round the world at such a critical time in the pregnancy. No one wants me to wind up in the wrong continent should there be any complications or should the little one decide to put in an early appearance. So while the other chaps are jetting around the Pacific Rim I will be buying the groceries, attending ante-natal classes and generally preparing myself for the cloud of unknown that is becoming a Dad.

In my stead we’ve been schooling a friend of ours, Daniel Lindegren (aka Tommy Sparks), in the ways of the Bloc. For the next few weeks Daniel will be doing his best to cover my portfolio of bass, keys, buttons, knobs and things that go ‘clonk’. He is more than proficient at many of these things so I can’t see it marring anyone’s enjoyment of the Bloc Party experience while I’m away. All being well, I will return to reclaim my mantle around the end of August, possibly bringing with me some profound wisdom as a new father, if not a complete lack of sleep.

Keep on rockin’ young ‘uns

Gordy. x

Although not quite as popular as Sun sign astrology, “Mercury Retrograde” has certainly become a buzzword - or buzz phrase - these days.What is Mercury Retrograde? Three, and sometimes four, times a year, the planet Mercury appears to be moving backwards in the sky for a period of approximately 3 weeks. “Appears” is the key word here, because, technically speaking, no planet actually moves backwards in their orbits around the Sun. In fact, they don’t even slow down. Retrograde-station-direct cycles are essentially illusions that result from our point of view from Earth, simply because the Earth is also orbiting the Sun at a different speed than the other planets. Mercury turns retrograde more frequently than any other planet. It can never be more than 28 degrees from the Sun, and whenever it reaches its furthest distance from the Sun, it changes direction.

Mercury stations and turns retrograde on May 26th, 2008.

Mercury is Retrograde in Gemini from May 26 to June 19, 2008.

11 May 2008 04:42 pm 12°59′ Enters Rx Zone

26 May 2008 11:42 am 21°32′Rx Stationary Retrograde

19 Jun 2008 10:26 am 12°59′ Stationary Direct

04 Jul 2008 08:33 am 21°32′ Leaves Rx Zone

Details: 26 May 2008 11:42 am 21°32′Rx to 19 Jun 2008 10:26 am 12°59′

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