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 almost impossible to keep up with and the constant high standard 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 essential part 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 important as the eponymous debut album from 2001. In fact, where large amounts of that first release clearly carried on a line that Blur were starting to draw at the end of the previous decade, this release clearly sets out the whole Dub, Hip-Hop, club-friendly package that would push Gorillaz on to massive mainstream success. That triumph was pushed on loads by the Soulchild remix of ’19-2000’ that kick starts this album. By no stretch a major improvement on the slightly ploddier original, but it is clear that its pumping grooves were a million times more likely to get plays in the pretty conservative nightclubs of the UK back in the day. Not just that, it’s flippin’ brilliant too; well deserving of top billing on an actual Gorillaz album rather than languishing in the relative obscurity of a ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ CD.
Perhaps the appearance of a radically un-changed ‘Rock The House’ and lesser version of ‘Clint Eastwood’ (I’m sorry 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 feast of subtle sampling and Big-Beat rhythm, or ‘Dracula’, a real laid back dubby gem on which Damon properly channels that Specials ‘Ghost Town’ vibe, more than adequately fill up the content. My favourite 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 drive his creativity to this day. There aren’t many who can afford to craft music such as that heard on ‘Faust’ and then almost hide it on an secondary release like this. Albarn can because for the past ten years he has literally been making music all the time. Essex Boy Review is throwing the spotlight on the 21st Century output of Damon Albarn over the coming months; expect a long, varied and increasingly fruitful journey.
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