new bloc party album - a weekend in the city

A Weekend in The City is inspired by lead singer Kele Okereke's interest in what he calls "the living noise of a metropolis." On Weekend, the band captures every detail from ebullient to the mundane – of daily life in a modern city, and the quiet desolation that suffuses everything from commuting to casual sex, from going out on a Friday night to the long ride home in the early hours of the morning. These are songs desperate to understand the meaning that pulses under the moments of our everyday: there are bursting with tension, paranoia, sadness, love and an intense need for reason as to how city life has become so displacing.

The track listing for A Weekend in the City is...

01. Song For Clay (Disappear Here)
02. Hunting For Witches
03. Waiting For the 7.18
04. The Prayer
05. Uniform
06. On
07. Where Is Home?
08. Kreuzberg
09. I Still Remember
10. Sunday
11. SRXT

not enjoying yourselves in london then boys?

Not everybody gets casual sex!

nice.

(NB: i loved Silent Alarm so I am actually looking forward to this album even if that concept description leaves me cold.)

;_;

There are occasions when the guitars sound great though.

Normally this would be a good thing, but in Bloc Party's case it would be catastrophic. Like ditching Hooky's bass or Marr's guitar, integral to the sound and emotion of their records. Was really psyched about this but am now a bit trepidatious.

For me this album seems like the last album too. Apart from Little Thoughts and Banquet, they haven't got any really, really big pop songs anyway, but as an album, it's not too bad. Though I'd like to hear the properly mixed version when it comes out, to see if it's any better.

nice, but less nice than the previous one :-(

Looks like the earlier one was either complete speculation or one of the selection they had to choose from.

Is that leak by BLOC PARTY or by BLOC PARTY. ?

Anyone else find the track order on this odd? Switch "On" and "Where Is Home" and the two halves almost seem like different bands. Different moods for sure.

I found this article a little disturbing and a little irritating. The former because of McLean's seeming desperation for Kele to say "I fuck boys, don't you fuck boys?", and the second because it makes no mention whatsoever of Luke Sutherland, singer from Long Fin Killie and Bows, who did the intelligent, dreadlocked, black, gay indie singer "schtick" (if there is such a thing) a decade before Kele (not that it makes it any easier for Kele to be who he is), and also did it in Scotland, which I would imagine is a damn site more difficult than doing it in the South East / London. It's such an obvious comparison to make, and I think asking Okereke if he knows of Sutherland and if so how he feels about him would have been a damn site more interesting than the goading that some of the piece borders on.

Also, Jacknife Lee is an awful, awful record producer.

OTM re: the production, though, I'm not really a fan of this band anyway to be honest but it has this bloodless nu-emoish sheen that's just killed any interest for me.

I love "Your Visits Are Getting Shorter", from the deluxe edition of 'Intimacy', but it's definitely more like a Kele solo track.

'Four' has a few really good moments too - "So He Begins to Lie" and "Kettling" I think. Some riffs in there.

I think I made it through 'HYMNS' once.

Y'know, I'm listening to Four now and it's sounding a lot better to me now than it did in 2012 - the only thing that I would immediately change are those bits where Kele is talking nonsense between some of the songs.

this album was ahead of its time

at least from an ideological standpoint

"flux" is wedged into the tracklist on streaming now i see.... incredible song

Oh, it's been like that for ages! After 'Flux' came out as a single, they re-released A Weekend in the City with it shoehorned into the tracklisting. I like it, but I'm not sure it fits.

I remember there being a lot of press surrounding 'Flux' and how it was billed as Bloc Party fully embracing electronic music and how it was supposed to be this change in sound for them - then I heard it and it just sounded like a Bloc Party song, not unusual at all.

... ok it's a little more electronic than that

Well yeah, electronics are used on it, but it wasn't exactly the radical shift in sound it was being billed as. Apparently there were tensions because Kele wanted to go more electronic and others in the band didn't.

some of the stuff on Intimacy really was a radical change in sound for them but I still have no idea what the fuck Mercury was supposed to be

glad this thread got bumped, been thinking about this at least since alfred re-upped his queer songs list and I Still Remember was on it

oh, and flux slaps

some of the stuff on Intimacy really was a radical change in sound for them but I still have no idea what the fuck Mercury was supposed to be

― ufo, Tuesday, August 14, 2018 12:12 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's probably the reason I like it!

'Signs' is my favourite of the "electro" Bloc Party songs, and one of my favourite Bloc Party songs overall. I think it's a heartfelt, beautiful song... so much so that I can overlook the occasional clunky lyric.

yeah I agree completely, one of the few highlights on Intimacy

I'm not huge on We Were Lovers and might take Selfish Son or Hunting for Witches over it

ufo said this and i was like, "wait... do i really need 'we were lovers'???" and then i was like, "the way kele sings 'ordinary man with ordinary desires' in 'hunting for witches' can't keep me from liking it forever" so i redid the order and i think this is the version of weekend in the city i'll listen to forever, better songs, better sequence (i'll toot my own horn here, i also haaaaate the "on" -> "where is home" -> "kreuzberg" sequencing on the og album and was happy to correct it), still-awkward lyrics, 12 songs, 55 minutes

1. song for clay
2. hunting for witches
3. cain said to abel
4. waiting for the 7.18
5. rhododendrons
6. on
7. uniform
8. kreuzberg
9. i still remember
10. sunday
11. england
12. sxrt

(rip "we were lovers" the first b-side i heard from this to make me think "wait, why isn't this good song on that album i love but i wish were much better than it is")

btw "on" is such a wonderful song

Very well.

That moment in 2004-2007 when my college radio students adored this band's every melody feels further away than thinking about 1997 (I don't intend this as criticism, but a comment on how distant this era looks).

it was roughly 1000 years ago yes

and "Flux" is fucking great

this album’s lyrics are like if the line of beauty were rewritten by modern-day morrissey

now you're putting cheese on the trap.

lol

just tried Brad's latest tracklist and it's so good! fixes nearly everything wrong with the album except the clunky phrasing.

On is so gorgeous, I love the strings. it's a very underrated track.

they really did record so much good material for this album, there's so many other good B-sides too, like The Once and Future King, Atonement, Vision of Heaven and Emma Kate's Accident.

i also haaaaate the "on" -> "where is home" -> "kreuzberg" sequencing on the og album and was happy to correct it

I don't - for me, there really isn't anything there to "correct" ...

I love 'Where Is Home?' - love that lyric.

The Once and Future King

nearly included this one in my configuration

i think "uniform" -> "on" -> "where is home" -> "kreuzberg" is a really clunky "aggro -> slow and contemplative transition" that happens twice in a row on the record, it always snaps me out of the meditative state "on" puts me in. which was probably the intention, i just think it sounds ugly and think they had better songs than "where is home"

it bugs me that the album snaps back and forth like that instead of settling into a mood, essentially

Oh, I'd say it was definitely the intention! Y'see, I don't think the events on A Weekend in the City are neccessarily consecutive - some of these things are happening at the same time, and while one guy is trying to escape via clubbing and recreational drug use in 'On', another guy is elsewhere feeling paranoid about recent events in the news and asking himself 'Where Is Home?' ... it strikes me as being quite a personal lyric. It's basically another side to 'Hunting for Witches' ...

I don't think the events on A Weekend in the City are neccessarily consecutive

i... don't think they are either

in my version "england" is essentially doing the "story" work of "where is home"

also all of the lyrics on this record strike me as being quite personal

all of them are about being young and black and gay and going out in the city every night and even in some of the b-sides silent alarm's popularity scrolls by in the background ("success has been cruel" appears in both "cain said to abel" and "once and future king") so, idk, it's pretty much all "personal" lyrics imo, that kind of unmediated expression is definitely what kele was going for but is also ultimately why the album is so awkwardly and clumsily executed bc... he's bad at it. he is constantly telling, never showing, etc. it's kind of the center of everything else that goes wrong with this record, the wild but also oddly-shaped and never quite realized club music excursions that are only made more unwieldy by kele cramming either too few or too many syllables into each line, the choice of songs and the sequence which longs to pull us into this deep sad idea of an album but never actually acquires any focus or direction bc the fast songs are too busy outdoing each other with density and the slow songs just kinda get shuttled between them wherever they arbitrarily fit

A lot of them, yes - 'I Still Remember', 'Kreuzberg', 'On', 'Where Is Home?', even 'The Prayer' all seem to have a lot of personal experience in them. It's one of the big reasons I like the album so much and can forgive some of the lyrics.

(x-post)

the choice of songs and the sequence which longs to pull us into this deep sad idea of an album but never actually acquires any focus or direction bc the fast songs are too busy outdoing each other with density and the slow songs just kinda get shuttled between them wherever they arbitrarily fit

Hmm. I've never found this album to be unfocused - in fact, I think they definitely made the record they set out to make and were happy with the results even if it didn't catapult them to the next level career wise as perhaps they hoped it would. I've always been mostly happy with the artists judgement calls on this record.

i should also say that the telling not showing approach is also responsible for some of my favorite moments of the record like the dumbass-on-paper but gorgeous-in-practice chorus of "kreuzberg"

I've always been mostly happy with the artists judgement calls on this record.

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Tuesday, August 21, 2018 9:56 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and i guess i think they had the resources to make a way better record than they did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP_zrBnC8_0

discipline discipline disappearing echoing echoing exiting

I must add, I think there are a few moments on the record where Kele is singing "in character" rather than as himself. In 'Hunting for Witches', for example. 'SRXT' too, even if he does throw his father's name in there.

'SRXT' is a perfect, if very sad, ending to this record - one of those closers where you have to take a minute or so to gather yourself after the album has finished. The silence after the album has ended ends up being part of the experience.

this is probably my favorite album that kinda sucks

haha yes

that's a good thread idea actually

The odd clunky lyric aside, I actually don't think this album sucks.

(I do wish they'd split up after Moakes and Tong had left, though)

listened to this album for the first time in 12 years last week. i hated it then, but i was 17 so what did i know. I still mostly dislike it but I think it really comes together starting at Kreuzberg, and the last few songs are nice bits of melodrama. maybe it's because the second half is a bit less sonically adventurous than the first half, maybe because they focus less on leaden social commentary, maybe because each song just has 1 good idea in it as opposed to 12 dueling ideas. either way, i definitely appreciate it a bit more than i did then, even though i still think the drums often feel like they're being beamed in from a different planet where a different band is playing a different song.

and i guess brad is otm upthread about the b-sides--my favorite songs on the spotify version, besides maybe srxt, are flux and selfish son

Yeah, there were some fine B-sides around this period, but there's absolutely nothing I would change about this record. The tracklisting as originally released, that is, not the re-release with 'Flux' on it.

need to take a long hard look in the mirror over the fact that none of my previous custom weekend in the city tracklists included "once and future king"

there's always one night per year where the only song i can listen to is "uniform"

it's not as good as any of their records but if you were going to make a timeline of albums throughout history that led to the 1975's career this would have to be on it, which counts as high praise in my book

absolutely