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Blur produces 'sonic hopefulness'
(CNN) --
The members of Blur are becoming masters of
reinvention.
The band
was formed in England in 1989 by vocalist-songwriter
Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon and bassist Alex
James. Drummer Dave Rowntree joined the fold shortly
afterward.
Blur, a pioneer in a
generation of guitar bands labeled Britpop, managed to
weather the rise and fall of that movement and later
withstand the spike in popularity of chief British rival
Oasis.
The latest bump in the
road came when Coxon left shortly after group members
gathered to record their seventh album, "Think
Tank."
The resulting three-piece
band forged ahead, and the album was released this
spring. The latest incarnation of Blur just finished a
U.S. tour and sat down with TMR to talk about "Think
Tank" and the experience of recording in Morocco.
 TMR: The new album, "Think
Tank," has been described as probably your most
positive album yet. How would you comment on that?
ALEX JAMES: It is
full of images of hope. Sonic hopefulness.
DAVE ROWNTREE: ...
For all of our previous albums, each one of the reviews
has gone, "This is a much darker album." I
mean, I think it couldn't have gotten any darker. I don't
even know, even really know what that means. But anyway,
this is an album made in the sunshine, and you can hear
the sunshine in it.
JAMES: Like
cornflakes. You can taste the sunshine.
TMR: How much do
you guys really care about what people say?
DAMON ALBARN: Of
course, it doesn't really matter. And what people say are
first impressions, which unfortunately is the way that
our whole system works. Everything is derived from that
first impression. And actually most music with any kind
of longevity is going take a lot longer to reveal itself
to you.
So in the -- because of
the necessity to get albums reviewed and sort of out
there -- in the context of marketing, I think the whole
language in which we describe music is not a true one.
Because I think no music really is what it is immediately
as to what it is future tense.
JAMES: Yes, it
becomes much more substantial when it's sort of based in,
when it's got a time context, when it's sort of become a
part of your life and you can say what it is better. I
mean it's nice to be reassured by good reviews, but
really the only person who knows how good what you've
done is you. You're the only person that can judge your
work.
TMR: How different
was it recording and writing and now touring without
Graham Coxon?
ROWNTREE: It
changed everything definitely when he left. But all
changes have good effects and bad effects. So I think if
he hadn't left, we wouldn't have got to play with such an
extraordinary range of musicians as we are now in the
live shows. There's nine of us on-stage now, backing
vocals, percussion, keyboards, brass.
It's kind of -- so that
was definitely a good effect. But he's one of our oldest
friends, so if you're losing one of your oldest friends,
there's always going to be a bad effect. Well, we haven't
lost him. We know where he is. We know where to find him.
TMR: Tell me about
the producers you worked with on this album.
ALBARN: Well, this
record we really only worked with one, Ben Hillier, who's
quite new to the game.
ROWNTREE: He's very
musical and very technically minded. It was sort of his
ability to build studios in barns and anywhere they were
required that's kind of very handy. I mean I think we
shipped about 13 tons of gear to Africa.
ALBARN: But once we
had that kind of headquarters, so to speak, we found that
we spent a lot more time recording outside. In fact, all
the vocals and some of the playing are all recorded
outside in the sunshine and at night. There's actually
very little that goes on in the studios. And it's
surprising really just how musical everyday life is.
JAMES: Yeah,
recording studios are designed by acoustic engineers, and
a fortune is spent working out what the best-shaped rooms
to listen to music [are], what shape rooms should be and
what shape drum rims should be and what materials they
should be constructed from.
I think we discovered as
long as you've got good microphones and you know what
you're doing, you could do it on the roof or on the
toilet. It's just about the spirit with which you make
the music ... that's what's important. You can get lost
in a quagmire of technology and jargon.
TMR: Do you guys
find yourselves not doing that?
ALBARN: We'd rather
make music like it was a street market than a massive
great shopping mall ... and you can buy nice fresh
mangoes on market.
TMR: What are your
future plans?
ROWNTREE: There are
enormous plans on the foot, but they mostly involve
playing shows, making records. And we started a lot of --
Damon wrote nearly 40 songs for this album, of which
nearly 30 got finished and nearly 25 ended up on the
record. But if there's one thing Damon's not short of,
it's songs so ...
JAMES: Making
records is the easy bit of being in a band.
ROWNTREE: It is
when you're on tour. When you're in the studio, being on
tour is the easy bit.
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