Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn will issue his second solo album, The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows, via Transgressive Records on November 12. Today, Albarn released the LP’s title track.
The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows comes seven years after Damon released his debut solo album, 2014’s Everyday Robots. Albarn originally wrote the material on the forthcoming 11-track record as a symphonic piece inspired by the landscapes of Iceland. Damon continued to work on the songs while locked down during the pandemic and used a line in John Clare’s “Love & Memory” poem as the title for the collection.
“I have been on my own dark journey while making this record and it led me to believe that a pure source might still exist,” Albarn said. Themes covered in the songs on The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows include fragility, loss, emergence and rebirth as per a press release.
Read a description of Albarn’s new album:
In a career of perpetual musical shifts and exploration, the record uncovers yet more ground, finding expansive orchestral arrangements nestling with intimate melodies, discordance brushing up against infectious majesty, all set to some of Albarn’s most arresting vocal performances to date. Much like the beauty and chaos of the natural world it soundtracks, The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows vividly documents the emotional ebb and flow of the human condition, in all its extremes, serving as a soul enriching document for our times.
Stream “The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows” — which opens the LP — below:
The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows Tracklist
- The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows
- The Cormorant
- Royal Morning Blue
- Combustion
- Daft Wader
- Darkness To Light
- Esja
- The Tower Of Montevideo
- Giraffe Trumpet Sea
- Polaris
- Particles
