Kele Okereke has continued to share some new music from his forthcoming new solo album, Fatherland, in “Grounds for Resentment”. A sweet duet with Years and Years‘ vocalist Olly Alexander, the song tells the story of a relationship from two different perspectives; oozing soul and vocal texture, it’s another reminder that Okereke’s new material is not what fans might be expecting.
For “Grounds for Resentment” and the duet with Alexander in particular, Okereke notes its importance to him, mentioning during a recent interview that, “I remember reading something that wrote about the use of pronouns in pop music for gay artists that I thought that was very perceptive and intelligent – that the use of pronouns was the last frontier for gay artists. There are lots of gay acts that avoid using the term he when singing about same sex desire. It will just be a neutral term, whereas Olly understands from what I read that there is a long way to go for gay musicians in being able to describe love and desire authentically. So I was very happy to sing a romantic duet with him on my album, because I couldn’t think of a precedent of any out gay musicians singing a love song to one another without having to hide behind codes.”
The end result is an honest and upfront take that is stripped of any of the electronics or brash pop sensibilities both artists are well known for – here, they’re just two people opening up in a great way.
Have a listen below!
Fatherland is out on October 6th. Stay up to date with Kele here.
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