Kele Okereke by Flore Diamant
Our recap of the main stories we featured during the past seven days includes a new album from Kele Okereke and a standout live performance from The Smile.
Kele Okereke has confirmed the details of his new album The Flames pt. 2.
It’ll be released on March 24th next year, and is being previewed with a first single which looks at the healthy mindset of questioning preserved, accepted history.
“As a British born Nigerian, that debate has made me angry,” the Bloc Party frontman said of Vandal. “It has felt like for these last few years I have been carrying around a lot of that anger, so with ‘Vandal’ I felt I needed to put it somewhere useful.”
Liam Gallagher and Florence & The Machine are leading the first wave of artists for next year’s Boardmasters festival.
Along side those headliners are Mercury winner Little Simz, Four Tet, Example, Jockstrap, Connie Constance and more, while Ben Nicky and Dimension are among those topping the DJ/Electro bill.
For Liam Gallagher, it’ll be another big festival headline to add to the list which has taken in a whole load since the launch of his solo career.
The death of Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson has been announced.
“This is the announcement we never wanted to make, & we do so with a very heavy heart: Wilko Johnson has died,” a social media statement reads.
“He passed away at home on Monday 21st November. Thank you for respecting the family’s privacy at this very sad time. RIP Wilko Johnson.”
Thom Yorke performing with The Smile at All Points East in London on August 28th, 2022 (Adam Hampton-Matthews for Live4ever)
The Smile were the recent musical guests of The Tonight Show, airing one of the standouts from this year’s debut album A Light For Attracting Attention.
You Will Never Work In Television Again was the track which introduced Radiohead pair Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s new project at the start of 2022, one formed with jazz drummer Tom Skinner.
“Although spirited and direct first single You Will Never Work In Television Again (a spat-out diatribe against Harvey Wernstein) augured well for fans clamouring for a return to The Bends, it sits as an outlier against the songs around it, all of which take their time to burrow into the listener’s consciousness, but do so effectively,” our review reads.
The 2023 live return of Blur is continuing to grow and will now include a concert in Ireland.
The gig at Malahide Castle in Dublin has been scheduled for June 24th, preceding the two shows at Wembley and the appearance at Beauregard Festival in France which are due at the start of July.
“I’m really looking forward to playing with my Blur brothers again and revisiting all those great songs,” Graham Coxon said.
Christine And The Queens has been unveiled as the curator for next year’s Meltdown Festival.
“What an honour to be picked by the fantastical teams of the Meltdown festival to be a curator this year,” Chris responded.
“It’s a tough thing to be a curator. Art wise, recently, my curating was erratic. Visceral. Sometimes regressive, back to the music I listened to when I was a teenager. A life-savior, music. One song to soothe them all. We expect from art to still save us yet we endanger it so much, everywhere.”
