Former Hefner singer Darren Hayman sang how he could remember former girlfriends by the cigarette brand he smoked at the time.

In À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu Marcel Proust’s narrator used to have memories come flooding back when he whiffed a Madeleine cake.

For Bloc Party singer and guitarist Kele Okereke it is listening to music which stirs his mind to times gone by. He says it feels like looking at a photograph.

“I listened to A Weekend In The City when I was moving house recently,” he says, referring to the record Bloc Party album released seven years ago.

“It brought back memories of making it and where I was as a human being. That is the thing I am most thankful for about making music – it’s a document of where you were at in your life: the things you were listening to, the conversations you were having, the person you were. It was like looking at a photograph from a long time ago.”

When he looks back to his second solo album Trick, released in October but written over a two-year period between DJing and penning a TV show, he sees a man in a passionate place, determined to make a pop record.

“To me it feels a lustful or carnal record. I have never explored singing about desire and this is where Trick fits in. It feels like the most sensual record I have made.”

Details about the TV show are hush hush but it sounds as if love has been on his mind.

“The long and the short of it is about an interracial marriage,” he reveals. “I did that start of last year and now I am working on something else.” In the last few years he has been writing fiction for literary journals such as Five Dials, penned short stories, is working on an idea for a novel and has written journalism for The Guardian.

But, for the moment, his focus is back on music again. Eight months ago he released Candy Flip, the second of two dancefloor-targeted EPs on London electronic dance imprint Crosstown Rebels.

“That was an attempt to free myself from the constraints of verse chorus verse chorus music.”

His debut solo album The Boxer continued the electronic experiments initiated in Bloc Party. Trick is another step in that direction, suggesting he has completely fallen out with rock music, but it is lusher and more graceful. Much of it would work in a 1990s R&B club.

“The aim was to write pop music, to make music my mum could like. It’s not pop music in the sense The Cheeky Girls is pop music, but I don’t see anything on the record as being difficult or inaccessible.”

He had no grand vision when he penned the words but Kele admits now he can see a linear narrative of a love affair running through Trick. Its first track is called First Impressions and it ends on Stay The Night.

“It’s about falling in and out of love. That is what it seemed to suggest to me now I have lived with the record for a while. All the songs seem to be concerned with the optimism and excitement at the start of a relationship or the sadness and bitterness that comes as a relationship is falling apart.”

Bloc Party refused to use visuals at shows. Nothing was allowed to interfere with the musicianship. For earsthetic Kele will create an “audio visual crossover” with artist David Altweger.

“I am always slightly jealous whenever I go see dance acts at festivals or at clubs and there was a visual or projections along with music.

“I have long felt that the idea of having visuals mapped out to live show is exciting in that you can present an experience.

“I was conscious the visuals needed to enhance the show. I knew I didn’t want any photographic imagery. I wanted it to be computer-generated patterns: images which wouldn’t be obstructive to performance and would take the audience on a journey.

“I wanted it to be subtle. I wanted colour to be red, black and white – those are dominant colours for the campaign.”

Brighton Dome Studio Theatre, New Road, Thursday, December 11