​Frank Ocean hints at new album and debuts reworked tracks at Coachella

During his headline set at California’s Coachella Festival over the weekend, Frank Ocean hinted at the release of a brand new album and debuted several never-before-heard reworked tracks.

The singer surprised fans during his first live performance since 2017 hinting that a new album is on its way, and will pay tribute to his late brother Ryan Breaux.

“It’s been so long,” he said on stage (via Pitchfork). “Everybody I’ve talked to has said how long it’s been - so long, so long. but I have missed you,” he said.

“I want to talk about why I’m here, because it’s not because of the new album. Not that there’s not a new album, but there’s not right now,” he hinted.

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Ocean continued: “These last couple years my life changed so much. My brother and I, we came to this festival a lot. I feel like I was dragged here so much of the time. I hated the dust - I always dealt with a respiratory infection.”

“I know he would’ve been so excited to be here with all of us. I wanted to say thank you for the support and the ears and the love for all this time,” he added.

The performance continued with multiple reworks of classic tracks from the singer, which included ‘Solo’, a remix of ‘Chanel’ from Crystallmess, ‘Wiseman’, ‘Self Control’, and an acoustic rendition of ‘Pink + White’.

Ocean also performed a number of covers during his first live show in some five years, such as Willie Nelson’s ‘Night Life’ and Isley Brothers’ ‘(At Your Best) You Are Love’.

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The show was forced to end early due to a midnight curfew, stopping Frank Ocean’s set abruptly. His performance was also due to be livestreamed but was subsequently scrapped after YouTube confirmed on Saturday: “Frank Ocean is not scheduled to appear on the Coachella livestream”.

The newly debuted reworks from Frank Ocean come after speculation from fans that the singer has been uploading old music to Spotify under the alias ‘blondead’, of which three fan favourites from his enormous 70-track compilation ‘The Lonny Breaux Collection’ from 2010 appeared.

[Via Pitchfork]

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Assistant Editor, follow her on Twitter