In a year that has seen nostalgic 20th-anniversary album celebrations from everyone from Oasis to Elastica to the Verve, Blur are marking 2015 with a surprise new album.
Two decades after The Great Escape and two years after playing Coachella, Damon Albarn’s reunited Britpop crew will release The Magic Whip on April 28, their eighth record overall and first since 2003’s Think Tank. It will feature all four members, presumably including guitarist Graham Coxon, who left in 2002 and last played on 1999’s 13.
Pre-orders are now open, and those who purchase in advance will score new track “Go Out.”
Blur will also play London’s Hyde Park on June 20 as part of the British Summer Time festival.
Can we get a “woohoo”?
UPDATE 9:46 a.m. EST: Here is the audio for Blur’s new single, “Go Out.” And added details from a presser that just went out: “The recordings, which began during a five-day break in touring in Spring 2013 – at Avon Studios in Kowloon, Hong Kong – were put aside when the group finished touring and returned to their respective lives. Last November, Graham Coxon revisited the tracks and, drafting in blur’s early producer Stephen Street, he worked with the band on the material. Albarn then added lyrics and the 12 tracks of The Magic Whip are the result.”
Albarn, for one, will have a busy year ahead, as he is also preparing a new Gorillaz studio album set for release in 2016.
Check the track listing and artwork for The Magic Whip below, as well as the BST fest poster…
Magic Whip Tracklist:
01. Lonesome Street
02. New World Towers
03. Go Out
04. Ice Cream Man
05. Thought I Was A Spaceman
06. I Broadcast
07. My Terracotta Heart
08. There Are Too Many Of Us
09. Ghost Ship
10. Pyongyang
11. Ong Ong
12. Mirrorball
