Damon Albarn is set to return on November 12th with his sophomore solo album, The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flow. As a preview, today the Gorillaz and Blur frontman has shared the track titled, “Polaris,” as well as a live performance video.
Originally intended as an orchestral piece inspired by the landscapes of Iceland, Albarn revisited the project during COVID-19 lockdown and further developed it to explore themes of fragility, loss, emergence, and rebirth.
Albarn recorded the 11-track LP in his barn with fellow musicians André de Ridder and Simon Tong. “I did in January. This January in my barn and I had two other musicians there and we were just wearing parkas,” Albarn recalled in an interview on Mark Rosnon’s The FADER Undercover podcast. “It was dusty and freezing. Everyone ended up with lung problems. It was awful. But I’m kind of glad we did it because it created a great atmosphere on the record.”
The performance of “Polaris” is part of a new series of cinematic films called “Sublime Boulevards – Performance Films,” featuring Albarn with a full live band alongside a string quartet, captured in black and white. Watch it below.
The Nearer the Fountain is Albarn’s solo follow-up to 2014’s Everyday Robots.
