Via www.blurcentral.co.uk

(from this week’s NME, cover date: 3 March 2007) Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon look closer to revealing plans to work together again, after NME confronted the Britpop legends.

Last week (February 17), Coxon declared he’d been thinking about a Blur reunion, so when we were given a chance to talk to Albarn about The Good, The Bad & The Queen this week, we couldn’t help but enquire about his old band.

With a single and more live dates planned for GBQ, along with an ‘opera’ and new anti-nuclear weapons website, Albarn has plenty on his plate, but we still sneaked in a Blur question. Here’s what he had to say…

Read the full interview over at www.blurcentral.co.uk

The Good, The Bad And The Queen’s Damon Albarn has worked with Massive Attack on tracks for their new album.

The band are currently working on the follow up to their first new studio album since 2003′s ‘100th Window‘.

Albarn is one of the featured vocalists on the new tracks along with TV On The Radio‘s Tunde Adebimpe and former Mazzy Star singer Hope Sandoval plus regular collaborators Horace Andy and Liz Fraser.

Member Grant ‘Daddy G’ Marshall said the band “could have enough material to release two albums in 12 months”, reports The Guardian.

Although no release date has been confirmed, it is believed the as yet untitled album will be called ‘Weather Underground’.

via NME.com

Damon Albarn is writing the music for a Chinese circus production.

The work is due to get its debut at the inaugural Manchester International Festival next June.

The Blur/Gorillaz singer recently returned from several weeks spent travelling across China, where he recorded with a variety of local musicians. He is now back in London working on the tapes and turning the raw material into a score.

The production, called ‘Monkey: Journey to the West’, is based on the traditional Chinese story ‘The Monkey King’ and the stage set is being designed by Albarn’s Gorillaz colleague, Jamie Hewlett.

After the show’s Manchester debut, it will be staged in Paris and Berlin. The show, directed by Chinese theatre director Chen Shi-Zheng, will also feature Shaolin monks and singers from the Peking Opera.

Albarn is on a deadline to finish the score before the end of the year, but will interrupt work on the project to make his live debut with his new and untitled band at London’s Roundhouse on October 26.

The band – as previously reported on NME.COM – includes ex-Clash bassist Paul Simonon, African drumming legend Tony Allen and former Verve keyboard player Simon Tong. The group’s debut album, ‘The Good, The Bad and The Queen’, will be released in the New Year.

NME.COM

DJ Danger Mouse is producing Damon Albarn’s new record in London and it isn’t with Gorillaz or Blur.

New York based producer Danger Mouse tells Penthouse Magazine (US) I’m working on another record with Damon Albarn from Gorillaz.

We�re working on a whole other record together. We’ve been doing it all summer and I’m going back out to London to work with him to finish this record.

It’s not Gorillaz or Blur…it’s something different, but it’s really good.

It’s not a solo record either. He’s the lead singer, but I can’t really say. We’ve been working on it for a while. It’s a full band basically, but it’s great. Hopefully we’ll finish it this year and it’ll hopefully be out next year.

contactmusic.com

Damon Albarn is the latest star to voice his disapproval for the Live 8 concerts.

The Blur/Gorillaz frontman told Jonathan Ross: “I thought it was rubbish, the intention was good but it left everyone with an empty feeling. It should have been more of a celebration.

“What did it achieve? What kind of feeling is sent out to the world when the world watches it and doesn’t see anyone from Africa there?”

Albarn is not alone in feeling underwhelmed: others to have criticised the event include Elton John, David Gray and even the organiser, Midge Ure.

Digital Spy