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When Blur decided to leave their Brit-pop struggles to chart rivals, Oasis and Suede, in the mid 90’s and released an Americanised lo-fi album with Blur (their fifth album), it was probably the best stimulus for Damon Albarn, keyboardist and lead singer of the group.

“Song 2” from the album woohoo-ed its way to the American Top 10 and put Blur on the world map. By then, Albarn was all charged up with inspiration and unending musical influences, steering the band to record their next album, 13, with renowned electronic producer, William Orbit (remember the late 90’s club hit, Adagio for Strings?), and later experimenting with even more darker electronics with Fatboy Slim in Think Tank, overwhelming fans and critics alike with their overturn.

The devoted musician, Albarn, had already formed a successful virtual band by then. Gorillaz sold over seven million albums with their debut in 2001, Gorillaz, before going multi-platinum with 2005’s record, Demon Days.

To some extent, the work overload put Blur on a hiatus. But Albarn also confessed that he was actually depressed playing without Graham Coxon when the guitarist parted ways with Blur in 2002.

Albarn remained dauntless nonetheless and continued to push musical boundaries with another new project, The Good, The Bad & The Queen, released in 2007. The admirable line-up comprised of musical stalwarts like iconic bassist Paul Simonon of The Clash, Afro-beat pioneer Tony Allen of Fela Kuti and ex-Verve guitarist Simon Tong, who had also served as Blur’s guitarist for live gigs when Coxon left the band.

The ingenuity lies in the mysteriously un-named band playing ghostly, moody songs (ala Thom Yorke) produced by Danger Mouse. But instead of waiting for the atmospherics of the concept album to fully settle onto London’s topography (the album is themed around life in London), Albarn crossed culture and wrote a Chinese opera!

Both Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, comic artist and co-founder of Gorillaz, were roped in to collaborate on Monkey: Journey to the West, a stage adaptation of the 16th century Buddhist odyssey which debuted in June 2007 for the Manchester International Festival. The 90-minute circus opera was scored by Albarn, designed by Hewlett and directed by Chen Shi-Zhen, a Chinese opera specialist.

After eating toads, climbing mountains and inventing his own instrument called the Klaxophone by assembling all the car horns ever to blare in China, the extraordinary adventure to the East (namely China) seemed to have powered Albarn’s radically creative crusade even more.

Albarn will be releasing a new album this July 2008, which will feature a 100-piece Chinese choir, plus musicians and an orchestra which might end up making a 120 to 130 troop. He told BBC 6 Music today that he has not decided on the title yet, but added, “there’s a monkey or two in there at least – bit like Gorillaz as well. It’s not an opera, it’s a proper record. And it’s all in Mandarin I can tell you that for sure!”

The new album will see Albarn working with Danger Mouse once again, who is also instrumental in producing for Gnarls Barkley and The Rapture.

That is not even the end of it. Albarn had already begun recording with Massive Attack for a few tracks in their up-coming album as a guest vocalist. But let’s save the Massive Attack story for another day.

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While news of a Damon Albarn album in Mandarin is absolutely gripping, what we really want to highlight is this: The first Gorillaz album saw some significant creative involvement of Dan the Automator. So, isn’t it exciting that Dan the Automator will actually be performing in Malaysia next month?? He’s part of all that impressive history and much more - you don’t possibly want to miss any of the action!

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