Blur's "radical" return

Albarn says new album should be done by May

While the U.K. music press has been counting down to the new studio releases from Oasis and Blur -- and fanning the flames of a largely media-created competition between the increasingly dissimilar bands -- Blur frontman Damon Albarn has been busy with other matters. Having just returned from a U.S. tour with his animated side project Gorillaz and promoting his upcoming benefit album for Oxfam entitled Mali Music, he is ready to get back to the business of making music with his longtime band mates Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree.

According to Albarn, the band has spent bits and pieces of time in the studio over the past six months and has almost finished recording its seventh release. Although Fatboy Slim was set to produce the album, Albarn sees his role as more limited. "There are a couple of tracks he could work on," Albarn says from London. "At the end of a recording period I do like to get someone in to see if they can help make it better, but we don't really have 'producers' anymore. The days where someone held our hand through the entire process are long gone."

And to confound matters, Albarn calls the new songs "the most radical things we've ever done," while also explaining that he and the band tried to bring things back to basics. "I think it sort of sounds a bit more like Can meets Led Zeppelin. Everyone in the band is playing really simply. The emphasis has been on making something grow and getting it simple, but right."

But comparisons to the avant-garde German libertines and metal forefathers aside, Albarn stops short of saying the record won't also be extremely accessible -- and it may even feature a catchy single like "Song 2." "Writing songs for me is not difficult," he says. "I know what comes with writing good accessible songs. I don't do it often, but will probably include a couple."

And while Albarn expects to have the new Blur record completed by the end of May, he doesn't want to release the disc until sometime in early 2003, perhaps getting a single out into circulation this summer. "There's too much other stuff going on right now," he says, mentioning a likely Gorillaz feature film among his other commitments. After all, a new Blur release would mean spending time with his band mates, promoting the album and probably touring.

"The thing that's always kept Blur consistent is that when we're in the studio together it's fine," Albarn says. "I would never pretend that we necessarily have a great relationship outside the studio, but when we're playing on stage or in the studio it works really well."

ANDREW STRICKMAN

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