release date: Apr. 28, 2014
format: digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Damon Albarn & Richard Russell
label: Parlophone - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Everyday Robots" (4 / 5) - 2. "Hostiles" (live) - 3. "Lonely Press Play (4 / 5) - 4. "Mr Tembo" (4 / 5) - 6. "The Selfish Giant" (4 / 5) - 7. "You and Me" - 10. "Photographs (You Are Taking Now)" - 12. "Heavy Seas of Love"
1st "real" studio album by Damon Albarn released on Parlophone and produced by Albarn and Richard Russell, with Brian Eno co-producing track #12.
After several collaboration projects, soundtrack releases, a demo album Democrazy (2003), he finally sends out brand new material in his own name. In fact, the term "project" seems fitting when talking of Mr. Albarn who has been like in an eternal process of projects since his involvement in the first ever virtual band Gorillaz from around 1998 while still a founding member of Blur - the latter has never officially disbanded but their last album remains Think Tank (2003), and it's really that particular album that Everyday Robots resembles the most.
The Gorillaz project is perhaps his first "real" solo-project, although, Blur in reality progressed into an Albarn-lead project, and especially with Think Tank where his usual music partner, Graham Coxon was absent in the writing and performing part of the recording process. In 2002 he was part of the album Mali Music, in 2003 he was one of the co-founders behind the cross-cultural project the Africa Express platform, and in 2006 he was even more involved in the "super-project" band The Good, the Bad & the Queen with whom he has so far only released one album, and that project is like Blur, Gorillaz, and Rocket Juice and the Moon (other collaboration project with Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers and African studio percussionist Tony Allen) only put on a hiatus - all with future plans of new material to come. So yes! Damon Albarn's project is... making musical projects, and he has no problems in finding / creating (new) projects to involve in, because that's what he does. I really like his ability not to conform. No one ever knows where his going next 'cause he's got so many interests and is influenced by this and that. I wouldn't be surprised one bit if he did a musical for the stage and would become a new shining musical composer, or would set out to realise a full-scale opera with classical musicians. He's so talented.
This album is another example of his artistic level. By choosing to release an album in his own name, he sort of states that it's neither this nor that, although, it does share some stylistic elements with his Gorillaz project-band and the (so far) last two Blur albums. However, if one would expect britpop or hip hop electropop, well that's not what you get here. Because this guy is everywhere in musical genres and styles, he comes out with something different (almost) no matter what he does, and this is definitely "something" as opposed to the expected. Stylistically, it's in a style of art pop but in a very laid-back type of singer / songwriter atmosphere of leaning on downtempo electronic and with elements of glitch pop and trip hop, but also with a nice modern jazz feel which ultimately makes it so transgressing. My initial "one-week-verdict" said 3 out of 5 stars, two weeks later I rated the album 3,5. Now after 1 month I find that it's worth 4 / 5 stars, because this is not only subtle and very interesting but also intelligently unique and very embraceable. The album has nearly only met very positive reviews. I like it, it's great, and the more I listen to it, the more I love it. Maybe, it will eventually end up on top of my year list. The album was nominated the British Mercury Prize in 2014, which was handed British hip-hop act Young Fathers for the album Dead.
[ The Guardian, Q Magazine, The Independent, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]
