The Great Escape?

Tabloid press rumours of a split in the BLUR camp has appeared to gain some credence after GRAHAM COXON revealed to NME.COM that he didn’t even know that his band mates had been to Morocco to record parts of the new album.

However, Coxon, who has been busy finishing off his new solo album, ‘The Kiss Of Morning’, working on his Transcopic label and spending time with his daughter, went on to deny the reports that he has quit Blur after a row with Damon Albarn.

Coxon told NME.COM: "There’s been no bust-ups at all. We’ve known each other too long for bust-ups. I’ve been recording on the Blur album, Blur haven’t split up. I’m in Blur. But in the past few weeks I’ve been very into being at home with my baby, riding motorbikes and getting my album ready for release. A lot of hard work on the Blur album is done anyway."

The other members of Blur recently travelled to Morocco to attempt recording new material in Marrakesh. Bassist Alex James wrote on the Blur website: "I suppose the idea at the bottom of this is to escape from whatever ghetto we’re in and free ourselves by going somewhere new and exciting."

But Coxon was not even aware of this recording session. He told NME.COM: "I don’t think the band went to Morocco, did they? I don’t know – I like staying in London recording. I’m not particularly involved in what’s happening with the Blur record now because they’re doing a lot of other things and I’m just doing my own record really."

Blur recently returned to London, and are working on new material with Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim. Damon Albarn told NME: "We've done about 25 songs. I don't think we can fit them all on one album. We're working to finish it for that kind of release date (January) but there's so much stuff to work through. It will take as long as we need to take but we don't intend it taking much longer than January."

Coxon added: "I get to be very traditional with my own stuff. Pretty much anything goes with what Blur does, it’s very loose. So using people like Norman Cook and the The Chemical Brothers, it’s always a quite good experiment. It’s pretty guitar heavy but not really in a rock way."

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