Bloc Party share new track "Pigwig" from Trevor Horn-produced album

Bloc Party released "Pigwig" on August 18, the latest single from their seventh album, Anatomy Of A Brief Romance, produced by Trevor Horn and due September 11 via Contagious Music. Frontman Kele Okereke named the song after an old pet name from a past relationship, inspired by the Beatrix Potter character who is the partner of Pigling Bland. "'Pigwig' is about the moment of realising that you have been hit by a very big love," he explained, "almost as if it's against your will."

Okereke called it one of the more tender songs on the record: Pigwig was his pet name for a former partner, after the Beatrix Potter character, "an inside joke that meant a lot to us at the time." Looking back, he said, the song recalls "a romantic seaside trip at the most magical point of our relationship." The track follows earlier singles "Coming On Strong," "Love Bombs" and "Now We Can't Be Friends" from the same album, and arrives with a vintage, 2000s-style video directed by Laura Perrett that captures the band performing live onstage.

Anatomy Of A Brief Romance runs to 14 songs and is structured, in Okereke's description, like a memoir, built around some of his most personal songwriting to date. He had previously described the album's early working title as "disco heartbreak" to NME, a phrase that has since "morphed into something else" as the record came together, and has spoken at length about the experience of working with Horn, a producer with more than 50 years behind acts including Grace Jones, the Pet Shop Boys and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. "He's made some of my favourite records of all time," Okereke said of Horn, "so it's quite interesting to hear what he has to say."

Bloc Party will tour the UK and Europe this winter co-headlining with Interpol, with dates running from Birmingham and Cardiff in late November through to two nights at London's Olympia in early December, following recent opening slots for Muse in North America. Last year the band won the Outstanding Song Collection Award at the Ivor Novellos, alongside honorees including U2, Brandon Flowers and Robbie Williams, and played the first-ever "icons" slot at Reading & Leeds, a run of recognition that has continued into this year's album rollout.

"Pigwig" is the band's most recent taste of the record after an earlier video for the same track already previewed the album's rollout, and with Anatomy Of A Brief Romance now weeks away, the rock band's biggest remaining question is how much further "disco heartbreak" will keep morphing before the record actually lands on the release calendar on September 11.