New York legends TV On The Radio are regarded in almost mythical terms for their influence on the 2000s alternative scene. Cooler than The Strokes, more adventurous than LCD Soundsystem, they continued a tradition of underground indie arthouse music, like some combination of all the great CBGBs bands: Television, Bad Brains, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie.
The band have caused much excitement as they’re back for UK shows this year but now their co-founder and principal songwriter Tunde Adebimpe is releasing his debut solo album. Where does this fit in?
How can you make space for an album as huge and glittering as a meteorite? Well, such things of course make their own space. Apparently the album came from a notebook of ideas, drawings and words he made during the pandemic, which he then started turning into songs with multi-instrumentalist Wilder Zoby, from Run The Jewels.
The genre-busting approach of TV… is here, with Adebimpe’s soaring vocals and poetic sensibilities, but he has also taken a leap into the cosmos. Thee Black Boltz is sci-fi Bowie, coalescing spacey retro electronics with floor-filling disco moves.
“I was thinking about my time in space, I was thinking about the human race,” he sings on the excellent Magnetic , before he boosts into 2001 trippy psychedelia with Ate The Moon, which swaggers like Nine Inch Nails but with has the pleasing charm of the space-cadet pop of Joe Meek.
Adebimpe’s spirit of adventure and showmanship is a joy and he never forgets the choruses or euphoria to elevate everything.
And yet, there is also deep emotion here. On Somebody New and God Knows, you have a sense of despair in the face of authoritarianism, and Thee Black Boltz are the flashes of lightening that Adebimpe is using to cut through it.
Thee Black Boltz byTunde Adebimpe is out April 18th on Sub Pop
