After ready 4 years between Channel Orange and the twin present of Endless and Blonde, Frank Ocean followers have now spent six and a half years looking out for a brand new album. It appeared like he is perhaps shifting in that route in 2019, when he launched a string of singles and hosted a collection of membership nights in New York. That part got here and went, and Ocean partisans haven’t had a lot hope of any substantial inventive output from the person past luxurious cock rings and such. But now that Ocean’s long-delayed Coachella set is seemingly going to occur, he’s additionally placing obscure messages out into the world gesturing on the thought of a brand new full-length launch.
On the again of posters mailed out within the newest Blonded merch sale, there’s a considerably cryptic message explaining what occurred with that 2019 marketing campaign, which yielded such singles as “DHL” and “In My Room.” It entails a photograph collection with Succession actor Jeremy Strong enjoying the a part of a document exec (therefore the Jeremy Strong merch included within the newest Blonded drop) and the prospect of Ocean’s PrEP+ membership nights increasing right into a collection of raves world wide, plans that have been apparently sidelined by the pandemic. The message concludes, “The Recording Artist has since changed his mind about the singles model, and is again more interested in durational bodies of work.” This shouldn’t be precisely an album announcement, however because the blonded.weblog Twitter account asserts, it’s “as close to an album announcement as we’ll ever get from Frank Ocean.”
Here’s the complete message:
In the summer season of 2019, Blonded produced a photograph collection shot on Thursday, August 8, 2019, by photographer Michael Marcelle. The photograph collection follows the story of a fictitious Recording Artist as he navigates the radio system.
In one scene the actor Jeremy Strong performs a Chairman of a serious document label. On the partitions: a clock, two framed data. The Chairman is flanked by one other determine. Both are wearing fits, sporting ties, and are positioned behind a protracted boardroom desk. They are reverse a shadowed determine within the foreground — the Recording Artist — whose subjectivity the viewer is to inhabit.
The Recording Artist makes an attempt to elucidate to the most important music label the singles distribution mannequin versus the long-form album mannequin. The Recording Artist believes the latter to be outdated, and that releasing singles is extra suited to trendy consumption habits the place folks curate their very own playlists that are then shared inside personal circles. The assembly doesn’t look like productive.
The photograph collection coincided with the planning of three Blonded stay radio occasions that 12 months. They have been held on three Thursday nights in the direction of the top of 2019, within the basement of the Knockdown Center in Queens, New York. On October nineteenth, twenty fourth, and the thirty first, 2019, doorways opened at 10PM. A customized nightclub with classic lighting was put in in the course of every get together.
On the primary evening, Bouffant Bouffant performed at 10:15PM, adopted by Justice at midnight, Sango at 1:15AM and Sherelle at 2:30AM. Leeon, Arca, Papi Juice, Shyboi, Joey LaBeija, Last Japan, and DJ Heather performed units on subsequent nights.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, these occasions have been meant to develop from small membership occasions to bigger raves internationally.
The Recording Artist has since modified his thoughts concerning the singles mannequin, and is once more curious about extra durational our bodies of labor.