Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke has announced details of his new solo album ‘Fatherland’ and shared a new track from it called ‘Streets Been Talkin”.
‘Fatherland’ is Okereke’s third solo effort to date and follows on from 2014’s ‘Trick’. The album features Years and Years’ Olly Alexander as well as Corinne Bailey Rae, and will be released on October 6. We have already heard the album’s lead track ‘Yemaya’.
Listen to new cut ‘Streets Been Talkin” below. In a press release, Kele says the song was “one of the first tracks I wrote for the album” and calls it a “bittersweet ode to romance and the passing of time.”
“I was listening a lot to Elliott Smith’s ‘Either/Or’, ‘Pink Moon’ by Nick Drake, ‘Blue’ by Joni Mitchell, and the Al Green album, ‘Still in Love With You’,” Okereke says of the album’s influences. “Writing these songs and expressing these words and feelings, it’s something that’s vital for me. I’m recognising I’m entering into a different part of my life.”
Okereke became a father last year, with daughter Savannah born in December 2016. “I’m fully conscious that this record is probably going to serve as a document for Savannah of the relationship between her fathers and who we were before she came into our lives,” he explains. “It feels important for her to see that we don’t have all the answers but we’re trying.”
Kele recorded the album in Portland and it sees him “embracing a much more organic – even classic – sonic palette”, according to its press release. It will feature genres ranging from “delicate folk”, “sumptuous soul” and “insidious, dub reggae-meets-Weimar cabaret”.
The ‘Fatherland’ tracklist and album art are below:
1. Overture
2. Streets Been Talking
3. You Keep On Whispering His Name
4. Capers
5. Grounds For Resentment (feat. Olly Alexander)
6. Yemaya
7. Do U Right
8. Versions Of Us (feat. Corinne Bailey Rae)
9. Portrait
10. Road To Ibadan
11. Savannah
12. The New Year Party
13. Royal Reign