Breaking news- Damon Albarn has announced that he has signed a record deal with Transgressive Records for a second solo album to be released in 2021 or 2022. The last time Damon has made a solo album was in 2014 when he released the critically acclaimed album titled "Everyday Robots".
“Damon has recently put the finishing touches to his much-anticipated, second solo album, full details for which will be released soon,” Transgressive announced recently on their social media outlets.
The indie label was initially founded by Tim Dellow and Toby L in 2004 and produces records for artists such as Arlo Parks, Alvvays, Foals and Johnny Flynn.
According to Transgressive: “We have had the great pleasure of collaborating with Damon over the years via the incredible Africa Express project, which has introduced many gifted artists to the Transgressive world. His voracious passion for music and exploration knows no bounds and repeatedly defies convention or categorisation, whilst always remaining utterly inviting and intoxicating throughout.
“Truly prolific, his latest solo work is amongst the finest of his career. We really couldn’t be more honoured to welcome Damon and his phenomenal team at Eleven Management into the Transgressive family, with an ongoing focus to break new ground and subvert expectations in a way that only he can.”
Damon is also scheduled to play at Edinburgh International Festival alongside the likes of Laura Mvula, Caribou and The Snuts in August 2021.
It looks like this is the beginning of a new era for the musician and undoubtedly, Damon Albarn fans will be looking forward to lots more news to come.
Back in 2012, Damon announced that he was releasing his first solo album of his career. titled Everyday Robots The album was made available via online streaming to the public. You can listen to the album in full below.
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Damon Albarn is set to release his debut solo album "Everyday Robots" on April 28th 2014. The album's title track and lead single will see a March 3rd digital and vinyl release. Albarn celebrated the announcement with the release of a new trailer for the album- a short movie clip featuring moving shots of landscapes and urban shots, ending with the hashtag #everydayrobots.
According to Billboard, "Everyday Robots," under the Warner Music umbrella, is comprised of 12 songs. The album will also include a deluxe CD/DVD package that features footage of a live performance in Los Angeles.
An interview with Rolling Stone last year revealed that Albarn had created the project with XL Recordings head Richard Russell, and that it would be a "sort of folk soul" release. Little else is currently known about the album.
Check out the full tracklist below.
1. "Everyday Robots" 2. "Hostiles" 3. "Lonely Press Play" 4. "Mr. Tembo" 5. "Parakeet" 6. "The Selfish Giant" 7. "You and Me" 8. "Hollow Ponds" 9. "Seven High" 10. "Photographs (You Are Taking Now)" 11. "The History of a Cheating Heart" 12. "Heavy Seas Of Love"
At a recent August press interview, musician Natasha Khan who is known for her stage name Bat for Lashes said that she recorded a new song for Damon Albarn's solo LP.
In the article Khan describes how she recently recorded a track with Damon Albarn: “If I could go back and tell the 15-year-old me that I’d just sang with Damon for his new record, she’d probably wet her pants with excitement,” she said. “I had such a massive crush on him when I was younger.”
Bat For Lashes is the pseudonym of British songwriter and singer artist Natasha Khan. Half English and half Pakistani, Khan's music style is bold, colorful and loud. Her songs often feature thunderous marching band drums, desert guitar, ballet school piano, harpsichord, sub-bass snarls, hand-claps and naive beats, with the women fluidly switching and swapping their instruments between songs.
It's not a wonder why Damon picked Bat for Lashes as one of his collaborators. Her track on Damon Albarn's new solo album is bound to be interesting and dynamic, and will likely reflect her usual varied style of instrument choice and beat.
Damon himself is also fond of using myriad instruments and sound devices to create his music, often with experimental elements embedded in the songs.
There have been no further news on when Damon's new album will be released. For now, the Blur frontman is busy with band tours all across the world.
For those interested in more about Bat for Lashes, check out her official website here.
Alex James was featured on a few media outlets this June, and it's not a surprise he had some new things to say about Blur and the band's future, new songs, recording sessions and his new Big Feastival event in partnership with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.
In the RadioTimes interview, Alex mentioned how The Big Feastival "currently has all his attention, but since Blur played in Hyde Park during London 2012, the full band has started touring again."
“We did a bit of recording in Hong Kong and it was brilliant,” says James, “but I don’t know what it is yet. The festival has been the main focus for me. The rest of Blur could also make an appearance at The Big Feastival this year. Graham came [to The Big Feastival] last year. They‘re all invited,” says James. Rizzle Kicks will be one of the guest stars in the music and food festival this year.
Alex James was also quoted in a Contact Music article saying that the "Blur recording sessions went well". BANG Showbiz exclusively reports that Alex said: ''We had a few days off in Hong Kong and thought, 'What the hell, let's go to the studio.' It went very well. The opportunity came and we took it. Any chance to get together and make music is very welcome. It was absolutely brilliant. We were just jamming, but it was good. I hope it happens.''
He also remarked: ''The big bands are getting bigger and bigger and the small ones are disappearing altogether. I think it's very hard to be in an indie band anymore. I think Blur would struggle if we were just starting out now. It's a very different climate.''
Blur forum member '101reykjavik' says: "Alex unfortunately is the one I take least notice of when it comes to pronouncements about the future of Blur. A litany of past quotes 'hoping' something will happen in some respect or other, which in the past have tended to amount to very little."
"If Damon said 'I hope it happens' I would sit up and take notice, but I wouldn't expect Damon to ever make that sort of public statement. Plus Alex arguably has the most need for Blur activity so always seems to be putting the most hopeful spin on things."
Another forum member '2-J' added: "For better or worse, Damon would really undermine his forthcoming solo album (due 2014) if he were to be too committal about Blur."
There has been many arguments as to whether Blur will indeed go forwards with their new album this year. Some say that Damon Albarn will not delay the recording any further after their massive 2013 world tour; some speculate that the Blur frontman will change his mind and focus on side-projects instead of making new music for Blur.
No news about the new album had been announced this month. Blur will continue their world tour and perform in Finland this week. Jamie Oliver and Alex James present The Big Feastival, a feel good festival of food and music for all the family on August 31 – September 1. For more info and tickets, click here.
Damon Albarn was recently interviewed by music magazine Rolling Stone about Blur, his new solo album and on Oasis. The interview was conducted before Blur's performance in the music festival Coachella 2013, California USA.
Damon Albarn is hours away from the first U.S. Blur show in years, but as he kicks back on a hotel patio overlooking a golf course near Coachella, his mind drifts to other things. Like the record he made with Bobby Womack, before the soul legend almost died last year. "He's OK," Albarn says, taking a sip of green tea. "We've actually just confirmed to play Glastonbury – he's got incredible spirit, you know?" Or his spectacular Peking-opera-inspired Monkey: Journey to the West, which is coming to New York's Lincoln Center in July after an acclaimed run in London.
"The exciting thing about productions is they change every time," he says. "I'll have the perspective this time to actually see if it's any good." And he's definitely psyched about his first solo record, which he recently wrapped with XL Records boss Richard Russell. "Richard does the rhythmic side, and I do everything else," Albarn says. "It's sort of folk soul."
Albarn plans to hit the road behind the LP, playing songs drawn from his entire career, including Blur and Gorillaz, for the first time. And a new Blur LP, which the band would record between festival gigs in Europe this summer, is a definite possibility. "We've got a couple of occasions when we're stuck in the middle of nowhere," he says. "So we might make the record in a week. If we can, it would be nice."
What drives you to take on all these different projects? There's Blur; Gorillaz; the Good, the Bad and the Queen; two operas; and way more. I get bored extremely easily. Blur was definitely my Nineties, Gorillaz was my 2000s, and then I've done a lot of different stuff this decade.
How connected do you feel to songs you wrote, at this point, decades ago? I enjoy playing them. A lot of the songs were quite dystopian in their worldview. And a lot of that stuff is much more pressing now than it was then. It seemed like the future then, and now it just seems like every day. So I can kind of get into it.
Is there a song that you think was especially prescient? A song like [1995's] "The Universal," which sings about, "This is the next century, where the universal's free . . . satellites in every home . . . "
Blur is one of the biggest bands of all time in England, but the tune the band is best known for in America is "Song 2," which is pretty uncharacteristic. What's it like to have that in your pocket? The reaction to that song must be so intense. The "woo-hoo" one, yes. Well, thank god! It really is guaranteed to make the whole place explode. Unfortunately, it's only two minutes.
In some ways Gorillaz are a bigger band in America than Blur. Oh much bigger, yeah. It would be nice to play "Clint Eastwood" and "Feel Good Inc." with Blur, but I can't. They won't play them with me! [Laughs] But I've just finished a solo record – when I go tour that, I'll play play stuff from all my different bands.
What's the record like? I've been making it with [XL Records chief] Richard Russell. We worked together on the Bobby Womack record, and really enjoy working together. He's done spectacularly well as a music mogul, but I think he wants to focus his energy on producing records. Making a solo record is can be such a disaster, so I thought if we're going to make a record with my name on it, I should get someone to really produce it – take that responsibility away from myself. Richard does the kind of rhythmic side of it and I do everything else.
How is Bobby doing? He's not the healthiest of guys, but he's able to do gigs and he's got incredible spirit. He doesn't let anything keep him down too long, you know? As soon as he opens his mouth and that voice comes out, he's just transported. It's such a magnificent voice.
What did you learn from that last huge, spectacular tour you did with Gorillaz in 2010? That was the most expensive tour of all time. I had 70 musicians. I toured around the world, played massive venues all around the world. I made about 20 pounds by the end of it [laughs], so I won't be going on another of those. It was incredible fun, I loved doing it, but economically it was an absolute fucking disaster.
Tell me about the opera – the footage I saw online looked incredible. It's very eccentric. It's colorful and youthful and fantastic for kids. I mean it's just a brilliant thing for kids. My daughter was inspired enough by it to start learning Mandarin after she watched it. And it's got this wonderful sort of anti-hero monkey who's just so irreverent and almost . . . amoral [laughs]. Kids love a character like that.
What kind of research went into it? I had four very interesting journeys across China. Like two weeks at a time. We were taken to some very rural, untouched places far away from the crazy commercial growth aspect of China. Back to places that felt positively medieval. I listened to a lot of traditional music, too. One day I had lunch with a music professor in Beijing and I quite earnestly sat down with him and said, "So what advice can you give me as to how to approach this?" And he took me into this library and there were like 1000 books of Chinese folk music notated and said, "Well, you either do it that way or just . . . do it instinctively." So I went for the latter.
The Stone Roses are also playing tonight. Are they friends? We're not friends, but I know them. We Brits always stick together. And all of the animosity of the Nineties is gone. I mean, I was playing "Tender" with Noel [Gallagher] at the Albert Hall two weeks ago, with Paul Weller on the drums. It's all in the past now.
Damon Albarn worked with director Rufus Norris on his new film 'Broken' (2012)'s soundtrack. The singer wrote the musical scores and instrumentals for this film, which details the story of a young girl in North London whose life changes after witnessing a violent attack.
The first piece of music in the movie trailer sounds a bit like something off Gorillaz's third album 'Plastic Beach' and definitely has a touch of Damon's signature melodies and beats.
The second piece of music is a nice rendition of Blur's fan club single 'Colours'. The single was released on August 2003 and seems to fit the movie's dark theme very well.
Watch the trailer for 'Broken' below.
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