Almost 25 years ago, Brooklyn Band TV on the radio took over the air and MTV with their synth as to the haunting operation. PIENS like “Staring To The Sun” and “Wolf Like Me” appealed to listeners with melodic hooks on hooks, and urgent and insistent streaming.
The leading man, born in Missouri, based in Los Angeles, the agitated creative spirit of Tunde Adebimpe has never lost his momentum, but the intensity and requests for the life of the group lost his chandelier until a reissue of the 20th anniversary and a tour for the album “Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes” in 2024 Reewithed TV on the radio. This was their renewed chemistry that the group is now prey to a new one, sixth album. He will climb on the heels of the first solo album of Adebimpe, “Thee Black Boltz”, which strengthens the fact that Debimpe is one of the most adventurous and incisive singer-songwriters in recent decades, at least.
The references to “Boltz” are dispersed on tracks, briefs of gratitude and joy that emerge from clouds of sadness. ADEBIMPE tells Times that the album reflected its own experiences to be in and through, a series of traumatic events and sorrow that intensified during the pandemic.
“(In 2019), I was doing a lot of free writing to get ideas, to put disorderly thoughts in a place, and I visualized a way to get out of a fairly heavy period of grief in which I was. Inspiration, it would not have come to you without these clouds of depression.
“Boltz is a metaphor to shock you from a bad situation,” said Tunde Adebimpe about his first solo album, “Thee Black Boltz”.
(Matt Seidel / For Times)
Many of these songs were written at the beginning and thick of the pandemic, when there was a feeling of panic and something which encroaches that no one with the power to stop it really did, he said. “American events, global events, felt intense and still do it … It is the feeling of elementary forces compared to human beings, and it will never be triggered.”
A series of studio flights – first of Adebimpe Garage -Studio, then the studios complex in which he worked – could have cook his momentum. The same goes for the refusal cycle he obtained after trying to shop on six demos in vain, but despite the elements that put a fierce battle, Adebimpe prevailed.
“When television on the radio paused in 2019, it was indefinite and I was not in a place where I thought I would make music for a long time. A few things happened,” he said. “Someone has broken down into my garage, which is my studio, and stole 15 years of archives, and my laptop. They disconnected the hard drive to my computer and left there – an act of strange charity, or something? They took drums, my weeds – ice on the cake – but I found my old 4 -track story and a box of bridges which went from 1998 to 2008. ”. The singer crossed, listened to these cassettes and found half -finished songs that he came out and restarted. “As I only had the 4 tracks to record, I started playing with and writing demos on it.”
His solo album had not been anticipated by most, because the versatile Adebimpe was prospering on a very frequented combination of theater (“Twisters” last year, “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and television series “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew”), realizing and collaborating through genres as vocalist or member of the guest group.
He was also busy doing television tours on the first radio album to celebrate his 20th anniversary. After their 2014 album “Seeds”, the group had turned and extinguished and released from the singles here and there. Apart from the group, there have been many projects shared since 2010, when Adebimpe appeared on the album of Dave Sitek “Maximum Balloon”. He lent his urgent and important voices for the slopes with a massive attack, the left field and directing the jewelry, and even found the time to connect with Faith No More and Mr. Bungle Mastermind Mike Patton and the doseone in the Supergroup Nevermen.
It seems surprising that it took him so long for him to make a solo album.
“I thought about it before,” he concedes. “The thing to be on television on the radio is that whenever we have decided to come together to record a new thing, everyone comes with a lot of new ideas and a lot of demos, and we always have a surplus of songs.” There were times during the group being together that they had a short break, and Adebimpe thought of taking these songs that no one else – for lack of time or interest – wanted to do anything. “I wrote the demos; I don't want to abandon them,” he said.
“I wrote the demos; I don't want to abandon them,” said Tunde Adebimpe about songs that have not been cup for radio on the radio.
(Matt Seidel / For Times)
The Radio DNA TV is undeniably.
“In 2008, I had a time when I was, what does a television look like radio?
“Toe Black Boltz” is ADEBIMPE without proving anything. He is not determined to differentiate his solo voice from his work with television on the radio, but there is a change of mood change here. Where there was an emergency and an intensity culminating for television on the radio tracks, “Thee Black Boltz” revels in more space for introspection in instrumentation and lyrics, fantasy and emotional frankness. On 11 concise tracks, Adebimpe crosses sorrow, drama, frustration and spatial exploration.
Looking for a little more than 20 years to bring AdeBImpe about the fleetingness of material possessions, inevitable human transcendence in light and air on “looking at the sun” and “Thee Black Boltz” is only the extension of the long fixation of Adebimpe on existence and our relative without sense. The new song “Drop” presents Adebimpe's own plea in the face of imminent death:
“We are going to feel it when we drop / do not send flowers / The visions never stop / from this life / and a time / we can all come together / burn so brilliant / and go up in the night.”
“Drop” opens with naked loop bases before filming in a dramatic melody on layers of synth and howled choruses. It is not Adebimpe's rebellion against television on the radio, but proof that in this group and solo, he only knows how to be fully authentic.
“” Drop “came when he seemed apocalyptic during the pandemic,” he said. “I thought of the people I had lost and to think, what do you feel exactly at your death, when you drop this body in which you live?” Is there nothing, not even a conscience? We don't know. It could be wonderful, or we could all be condemned, but we can think about it because We are here now. What is the best use of our very limited time on our planet? »»
The ephemeral reflections of Adebimpe to death became very real when his only parent in the United States, his younger sister, died in 2021. A week after signing to Sub Pop with a handful of demos, he had to take a break to react.
“What is the best use of our very limited time on our planet?” Tunde Adebimpe undresses on his first solo album.
(Matt Seidel / For Times)
“I had started writing the disc, and I didn't know I was writing a record. It was after all my things were stolen … so it was the minor and material things that occurred. Then in 2021, from nowhere, my younger sister died very sudden. Another family in the country, so I had to go to Florida, organize the funeral, face their house, in a very short time. »»
When he returned to Los Angeles, “I didn't want to do anything for a long time,” he said.
“But doing things is a great way to deal with. I took the disorderly feelings, the joyful feelings and I downloaded them in free writing, making demos as ultimately the record as a way to get it through. I had had losses over the years that I had not taken into account or to make any peace, not that you can never. The pandemic gave me a second.”
His sister is at the center of the song “Ily” or “I Love You”, on the disc.
“This song is entirely for her,” explains Adebimpe. “It is a simple and clear song and it's versatile. It is not a Valentine's Day card, but you can use it to love yourself, someone else, like the very simple expression of gratitude for this person with whom you are lucky to land on the universe. You cannot choose your family, but it was the best, and I am so grateful to be able to be …
The beauty and the freed spirit of “Thee Black Boltz” are illustrated in the diversity of musicality and lyrical themes. It is, exactly as Adebimpe suggested, similar to a mixtape which acts as a time capsule for a peak period for an individual as much as the collective. Where should listeners start?
ADEBIMPE says: “All the songs are so different, but if you had to make your way, I really like” someone new “. It was a mixture of two different things on which we worked individually – me and (producer Wilder Zoby). Then, on a boost, we sewn with something with which I played, and although he changed in a melodic way, it is a good dance floor.
Now that it is there, he says, “I feel good. Mixtape and saying: “It has a lot of strange s, I did it for you, and I hope you are there!” This is exactly what I feel about this disc. “”
