The record also marks a sonic departure for the band, who this time enlisted legendary producer Trevor Horn (Pet Shop Boys, Grace Jones, Frankie Goes To Hollywood). “He’s made some of my favourite records and has made so much great queer-coded music over the years,” explains Kele. “We’d released ‘Alpha Games’, which was very abrasive, dark music, and the sentiments on the record were quite brittle. Trevor put the music in a different space entirely - he was such a great presence in the studio, I felt really safe with him.”

However, that’s not to say it was easy picking through romantic rubble in such depth. “For the last two years I had to live in the relationship that had just ended and make sense of it - I guess that’s what people do after breakups anyway,” he muses. “I had to really go back and think about what had happened. I don’t know if that’s healthy when you’re trying to move on, so I felt like I was stuck in limbo.” Ultimately though, he says it was something that had to be done. “I documented the journey so I could make sense of it myself. I think the way that it all fell apart seemed so spectacularly unfair, I had to turn that lemon into lemonade.”

“Two things have contributed to why I wanted to tell such a complete story,” he continues. “Currently I’m writing a memoir about my life, so I’m very much looking back and trying to organise my life. I think that really bled into this more confessional record. I’ve also been working a lot on musicals with a really great writer friend of mine. It’s been something that’s really resonated with me - this idea of starting a story, watching it develop, and then finishing it. I think that’s what I wanted in the back of my mind with these songs.”

You can quite easily point to the wider, powerful significance of Bloc Party making an album that so openly addresses Kele’s sexuality, but while that weight isn’t lost on him, the frontman and driving force is wary of leaning into any larger meanings beyond his own catharsis. “I understand the importance of it, but the reality of this was that I made this record because I needed to. It was a type of personal therapy for me, and I couldn’t think of anything else.

“People will extrapolate what the significance of this album is and I understand that, especially in the time we’re living in now, where we can see what’s coming around the corner and how tolerance is being eroded. I think the idea of being this visible is an important thing. I’m really proud to be doing this right now, where I think it means something, but the album really came from a place of healing; I needed to heal myself and this is the way I did it.”

During that period, the band’s generation-defining classic ‘Silent Alarm’ - which recently celebrated its 20th birthday - had launched them onto main stages around the world (not to mention cemented their position on sticky-floored indie disco playlists forevermore). And yet, it wasn’t all as rosy as it might have seemed. “I was a scared 20 year old trying to navigate the music industry and although I was living an out life, it was something I wasn’t speaking about,” he shares. “All I remember from those first few years was doing this kind of dance with the press - it was tiring and at times it didn’t really feel fair.”

It makes sense, then, that being comfortable enough to finally broach such themes on his own terms comes with a sense of liberation. “When I think back to that time, I feel like I went through a lot of unnecessary angst about things. I was 20 years old and now I’m 40; I know what my life is. At the start of my career I wasn’t so sure, but now I know who I am and what I’m here to do.”

Does he feel like a survivor, having made it this far? “I do on some level, when I look back and see that a lot of the bands we started out with are no longer here, but that’s only when you take the time to reflect.” He insists that Bloc Party, for their part, have always been about forward movement. “Anyone who knows our journey knows we don’t look backwards. That being said, it is good to take stock of where you are and where you’ve come from.”

The band’s origin story is one of an explosive rise - one which, Kele says now, undoubtedly shaped his broader outlook. “We’re quite bloody-minded,” he laughs. “The reality of the success we had at the start of our career meant that, straight out of the traps, we knew what was best for us. That can often be a bit of a problem when you’re a new artist because you have so many people telling you what you need to be, but I don’t think we ever succumbed to that - we trusted our instincts from the very start.”

One constant amidst the chaos is that, for Kele, Bloc Party have never felt part of a scene. “We never really paid much attention to the landscape; we were just so focused on what we were doing. It was tunnel vision, I guess. I’ve always felt like we’ve done our own thing, and that vision that originally set us apart is the same vision that keeps us going now. We do this because we have an honest and passionate desire to create - that’s the North star that we need to be following. 

“There are obviously things about this industry that are gross and annoying, but I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” he says simply. “Just making this record has proven that fact to me. It’s more than just a job; for the last 25 years, this is where I’ve been putting my feelings and my thoughts, and when I really needed it, this outlet has been there for me. My appreciation for what I do has really changed with this record.”

‘Anatomy Of A Brief Romance’ is out now via cOnTAGIOUS LTD. 

Tags: Features, Interviews, Bloc Party, From The Magazine, September 2026