Damon Albarn has always been an unpredictable sort. While he now seems to be committed to the seminal Britpop band that first launched his career, with Blur reuniting and playing several shows and even releasing two new songs in light of the London 2012 Olympic Games, progress on a whole new album’s worth of material from the quartet has been troubled at best.
Nearly a year ago, NME reported that the band had aborted sessions with producer William Orbit (who worked with Blur on 1999 album 13), and though recording had turned up “new stuff [that] sounded amazing,” according to Orbit, sessions were halted by Albarn with little explanation. “It all stopped suddenly. It was all over with Damon, and the rest of the band were like, ‘Is this it?'” With the producer later tweeting that the frontman could be “kinda a shit to the rest of Blur.”
But now it looks as if the Albarn and his bandmates – guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James, and drummer Dave Rowntree – are ready to give it another crack. As NME now reprots, during Blur’s performance at Hong Kong’s AsiaWorld-Expo this week, Albarn dropped a bombshell onstage (which you can view in the above video): “So we have a week in Hong Kong, and we thought it would be a good time to try and record another record.” “So we have a week in Hong Kong, and we thought it would be a good time to try and record another record.” – Damon Albarn
The band have time off to hit the studio given they postponed their forthcoming tour to Japan, and laying down new material would mark the start of their first new album in 10 years since Think Tank, the band’s then-swansong.
Blur did write, record, and release two new songs for last year’s Hyde Park concerts. The tracks – ‘Under The Westway’ and ‘The Puritan’ – were first unveiled via a live video stream on Twitter of Blur’s Hyde Park shows, with both eventually released as standalone singles.
Despite Blur’s tour through Hong Kong and Japan, skirting close to Australian shores, they are once again skipping over a tour Down Under and despite strong rumours last year that their reunion plans would extend to Australia, the Britpop icons have yet to return since their last visit 16 years ago.
