Following the release of the minimalist instrumental track “The Heart Of The Wave” earlier this month, Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke is back to officially announce his new solo album — with a Bronski Beat cover. The Waves Pt. 1, the follow-up to 2019’s 2042, will be out in May, and Kele describes its genesis in a lengthy statement:

After the first lockdown I found myself in an odd position. We were due to start working on my second musical with the Lyric Theatre but when the lockdown came into effect those plans were thrown into disarray. I became a stay at home dad of a 3 year old and a 6 month old. Those initial days were hard but looking back they were also incredibly rewarding. In the rare moments of down time I would go up to my music room and play the guitar, looping myself, making this wall of sound. it became a type of therapy for me, something to calm me down as it seemed like the whole world was losing its head. I realised in those moments that I missed the act of performing, so I joined Instagram so I could upload performances of my old songs and songs that I love. It was a lifeline for me, to still feel connected to an audience, to still feel like a musician in this time of freefall.

What also became clear was that I still had the desire to create. Usually when I make records it’s an ensemble affair, there are usually lots of other musicians and singers I work with, but as we were in lockdown I did not have that luxury of being able to work with other musicians. I knew I had to fill in the space of this record entirely by myself, which was daunting but also very liberating. This album is literally the sound of me.

As I didn’t have so much time in the days to work on the ideas I had to be very focused with the little time that I did have. During the night I would go for long walks around the city on my own, listening in the moonlight to what I had recorded in the day, rearranging the songs in my head, trimming the fat. It became very clear to me that I had the start of a new record and it was going to feel very different to what I had done before.

The initial plan was that the record was going to be solely instrumental, after 2042 I knew that I wanted a break from writing words. Although making that record had been rewarding it had also at times been quite traumatic for me, as I was forced to examine a lot of my own personal fears and anxieties about race relations in this country and the US. I made 2042 in 2019, so when those same discussions about race came into sharp focus after the death of George Floyd in 2020 I personally felt that I needed a break from the heaviness, I knew that whatever I did next musically would need to cleanse me.

Slowly I started adding words and vocal melodies to the ideas and I could see songs starting to take shape but it was important to me that the music felt fluid, that it drifted in out like the bobbing of waves, that if you let yourself succumb to it maybe it could take you somewhere else, somewhere far away from here.

The first track Kele is sharing from The Waves Pt. 1 is a twinkly guitar-centric cover of Bronski Beat’s 1984 queer synthpop classic “Smalltown Boy.” Listen and check out the record’s full tracklist below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Message From The Spirit World”
02 “They Didn’t See It Coming”
03 “The Way We Live Now”
04 “How To Beat The Lie Detector”
05 “Dungeness”
06 “Ninevah”
07 “The One Who Held You Up”
08 “The Patriots”
09 “Intention”
10 “Smalltown Boy”
11 “From A Place Of Love”
12 “The Heart Of The Wave”
13 “Cradle You” (Bonus Track)

The Waves Pt. 1 is out 5/28 via Kele’s own KOLA Records/!K7. Pre-order it here.