Over the summer, Frank Ocean promised that a vinyl release of Channel Orange was on the way. Apparently that’s not all the reclusive Grammy-winner has been up to lately. In a cover story for W Magazine, Ocean divulged new details about his upcoming album.
The follow-up to 2016’s Blonde and Endless appears to be influenced by the club and nightlife scene. “I’ve been interested in club, and the many different iterations of nightlife for music and songs,” Ocean explained. “And so the things I look at now have a lot to do with those scenes: Detroit, Chicago, techno, house, French electronic…”
Ocean added that although he grew up amidst the New Orleans bounce music scene, he doesn’t “really go back to it so much as a touch point. I’m really looking forward.”
(Read: The Top 25 Albums of 2019… So Far)
Fans can expect his future releases to be “independently produced” following his drama with Def Jam three years ago and subsequent split from the label. “I’ve been independent since 2016. So I plan on keeping it that way for a while,” he said before joking, “I’ve got amazing credit, so if I need a loan, I’ll go to a bank.”
While his upcoming new album will be self-released, Ocean expressed that he is currently interested in exploring projects that are more collaborative in nature:
“I think for a while I’d like to get away from work that’s solitary by nature. I’ve never been in a band or had a songwriting partner or been with a group, so it’s always been a lot of time on my own writing and doing the work. I like the parts of the process where I work with session musicians or with other record producers or featured artists and guest vocalists. I’ve been trying to make time to do more of that sort of thing, and be in spaces where I’m not the expert.”
Elsewhere in the W Magazine interview, Ocean talked briefly about politics (“the stake are high”) and his 2018 T-shirt campaign to boost voter turnouts. He also mentioned that he’s been working with a string arranger in Rio de Janeiro and learning to do underwater laps in his pool.
The fashion-conscious crooner also made it a point to — like everyone else recently — praise Keanu Reeves. “I was feeling how Keanu Reeves looked in The Devil’s Advocate. He would wear a sports coat and tie with a button-collar Oxford sort of deal — the best hair, and the light-wash denims and the belt that matched the shoes. Just very nice.”
Read the entire thing on W Magazine. Revisit Blonde single “Nikes” below while we await more word on Ocean’s next effort.
