Anybody who still has hopes of more Blur reunion tours or releases will have to put those hopes aside: Damon Albarn is officially in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He’s working on a new project called DRC Music, working with local musicians as well as drafting several of the finest up-and-coming producers and beatmakers. We’d already heard rumblings of Albarn’s project with Dan The Automator when we posted a demo a couple of months ago, and now more details are starting to emerge.
The DRC Music Project has become a lot more social recently, setting up a Facebook page, Twitter account and a Tumblr.
Albarn has drafted in a select group of people to help. The list doesn’t feature any huge names, but for those who are heavily into electronic or hip-hop, at least some of these names should be familiar. Actress, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Kwes, Jniero Jarel, Marc Antoine, Jo Gunton the aforementioned Dan The Automator, and XL Records boss Richard Russell.
The original plan for this project was to create “a project in which DJs and producers will record and sample Congolese music, and aim to complete a record in not much more than a week.” With all that creativity in one place, it could be the case that they hit their week deadline easily, but on the other hand they may just have so many ideas between them that they can’t get it all done in one week. We know for now, thanks to their Tumblr, that they are working with Congolese band Tout Puissant Mukalo.
When music is eventually released from the collective not only will we be excited to hear it, but we’ll be excited to buy it too, since all proceeds are going to Oxfam.
[via Pitchfork]
