Damon Albarn
On Wednesday 17th October 2021, we were so very proud to welcome Damon Albarn to Totnes to perform select songs from his new album, “The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows”.
Photographed for us by Jay Bing.
““I just felt like the beginning of this year was so grim and I had to do something to lift me out of those, I wouldn’t call doldrums, but storms – those terrible north wind storms that you get down by the sea in Devon sometimes.””
On the release of his quite beautiful second solo album, it dawned on us that Damon Albarn’s voice has been a huge part of our musical landscape for just over thirty years now. Not only is it great to have him back, it is thrilling having that voice mature and still keep us enthralled.
Set List
The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows
The Cormorant
Royal Morning Blue
Daft Wader
Darkness To Light
The Tower Of Montevideo
Giraffe Trumpet Sea
Polaris
Particles
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End Of A Century
Beetlebum
The Universal
Originally intended as an orchestral piece inspired by the landscapes of Iceland, it was worked on and developed further in the early part of this year, with Damon and collaborators reigning in some pretty wild experimentalism to create an often maudlin, but beautifully uplighting album. ‘Royal Morning Blue’ and ‘Polaris’ are brilliant examples of Albarn’s yearning phrasing and finely crafted songwriting and arranging, anthemic moments against the album’s magnificent beauty and often madcap inventiveness. It’s both sides that make this record so special, an artist able and vindicated to follow his own beat and do whatever he pleases.