Bloc Party

Bloc Party is an English pop-rock band from London. Russell Lissack and Kele Okereke, founders of the band, first met in 1998 in Essex and found the other members through adverts in NME. Bloc Party was the name the members chose after trying such titles as Union, Superheroes of BMX, The Angel Range and Diet. In November 2003, Bloc Party had their track The Marshals Are Dead featured on a compilation CD called The New Cross released by Angular Recording Corporation. They then released their debut single She's Hearing Voices on the record label Trash Aesthetics. Okereke managed to promote this song to radio through Franz Ferdinand's vocalist Alex Kapranos and Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq. Bloc Party's debut album, Silent Alarm, was released in February 2005 and gained recognition among the critics. They named it the 2005 album of the year, as it reached #3 on the UK album charts before running platinum. Bloc Party named The Cure and The Strokes among their main influencers and inspirers. The first album music combined rough guitar sound with British melancholy touches. As the record was a good seller and brought its makers first significant popularity, The Chemical Brothers invited Okereke to participate in a recording of a song Believe for their album Push The Button.

An album of remixes of tracks from Silent Alarm was released at the end of August 2005 in the UK. This remix album, Silent Alarm Remixed, retained the album's original track list and included remixes from the likes of Ladytron, M83, Death from Above 1979, Four Tet and Mogwai. Bloc Party released the second album, A Weekend in the City, on February 1, 2007. A Weekend in the City was made available to listen to for free through the band's official My Space page. The musicians changed their sound proceeding from the thought that rock music was based of restoration of the past trends, while it was necessary to move forward. This record contained more electronic tricks and was still full of unexpected and unordinary ideas. In October 2007 it was announced that Bloc Party would release a new single, Flux, an electronic song, which was very different comparing to the previous singles released by the band. The band's first gig following the release of A Weekend In The City was on February 5, 2007, in Reading, and was broadcast live on BBC 6 Music.

As the music Bloc Party performed was becoming more diverse the band was constantly distancing itself from rock into the direction of electronic experiments. The sound got darker and more atmospheric. Mercury, the first single from the upcoming third album, was played on BBC Radio 1 show on July 7, 2008. It was recorded in a similar manner as Flux. Mercury was met with admiration and great expectations for the upcoming album. On August 20 2008, the band released Trojan Horse, Signs and One Month Off, songs from the new album Intimacy, on their My Space page. Same month Bloc Party played at the Reading and Leeds festivals as a supporting act for The Killers on the main stage. At the conclusion of the Leeds concert, Kele suggested that it would be the band's last live performance for some time. A year later, Bloc Party delivered Intimacy – Remixed, an alternative version of their last studio album featuring remixes of the Intimacy songs. The track-listing of this release was almost the same as that of the original version of the album.