I thought Blur were pretty prolific back in the 1990s, putting loads of weird and wonderful stuff on their CD single extra tracks. But as for Damon Albarn in Noughties?! He`s proved nearly inconceivable to hold up with and the constant high measure of the music he puts out is pretty damn incredible! This album should be weak really.
By rights an album that`s made up mainly off off-cuts, b-sides and remixes shouldn`t stand as an indispensable component of any bands back catalogue. They`re released for the hardcore fans and completists by and large. But this album stands alone as a set that`s every bit as authoritative as the eponymous debut album from 2001. In fact, where large amounts of that first release clearly carried on a business that Blur were starting to make at the end of the former decade, this issue clearly sets out the whole Dub, Hip-Hop, club-friendly package that would push Gorillaz on to massive mainstream success. That victory was pushed on loads by the Soulchild remix of `19-2000` that kick starts this album. By no stretch a major advance on the slightly ploddier original, but it is light that its pumping grooves were a billion times more potential to get plays in the somewhat conservative nightclubs of the UK back in the day. Not only that, it`s flippin` brilliant too; well deserving of top billing on an actual Gorillaz album rather than languishing in the comparative obscurity of a `Now That`s What I Call Music` CD.
Perhaps the show of a radically un-changed `Rock The Family` and lesser version of `Clint Eastwood` (I`m sad but without the Damon Albarn chant of the chorus it means a lot less to me) hold back the overall package a bit. But then tracks like `Left Hand Suzuki Method`, a banquet of subtle sampling and Big-Beat rhythm, or `Dracula`, a very laid back dubby gem on which Damon properly channels that Specials `Ghost Town` vibe, more than adequately fill up the content. My darling is `Faust` on which Damon Albarn shamelessly turns the Gorillaz into authentic purveyors of throbbing Krautrock. Here too is a major clue as to the work ethic that continues to get his creativity to this day. There aren`t many who can give to craft music such as that heard on `Faust` and so almost cover it on an secondary release like this. Albarn can because for the preceding ten days he has literally been making music all the time. Essex Boy Review is throwing the spot on the 21st Century output of Damon Albarn over the upcoming months; expect a long, varied and increasingly fruitful journey.
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