Damon Albarn Forms New Band With Tony Allen & Flea

Leslie Cheung about 13 years ago

Damon Albarn has formed a new band with The Good, The Bad & The Queen fellow member Tony Allen and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea - Rocket Juice And The Moon. The band played at several Another Honest Jon's [the label Albarn co-runs] Chop Up! events in London, Dublin and Cork. Damon said in interview with Irish Times, "someone in Lagos did the sleeve design and that’s the name he gave it, which suits me because trying to find a name for another band is always tricky."

The band RJATM has worked on their "mostly instrumental" album (scheduled for release next year) for the past two or three years, and they have posted some live tracks over the weekend on their YouTube channel.

"Poison"


"Put It Out"


"Red Skies"


"The Moon"


"Damn"


"Dolo Mbife"


"Here We Go"


Damon Albarn is in this week's NME too and he talked about his other bands.

Blur has recorded a spoken word piece with poet Michael Horovitz. The song is inspired by the threat that the Notting Hill Carnival was going to be cancelled because of the riots. After the Carnival was able to go ahead, the song remains unreleased. They would like to tour USA but this will not happen this year.

He also wrote a new song for The Good, The Bad & The Queen which they will play at the Greenpeace show. Damon says he'd love to record with them again.

For Gorillaz, Damon says he's "put the book down" and "probably reading another one at the moment." Anyway, the cartoon band will release a singles collection, The Singles Collection 2001-2011, on November 28. The album's track-listing is as follow:

Tomorrow Comes Today
Clint Eastwood [original]
19-2000 [original]
Rock The House
Feel Good Inc.
DARE
Dirty Harry
Kids With Guns
El Manana
Stylo
Superfast Jellyfish
On Melancholy Hill
Doncamatic
Clint Eastwood [Ed Case & Sweetie Irie refix]
19-2000 [Soulchild remix]

It will be released on CD, double 12" vinyl and a 8x 7" vinyl boxset.

In another interview with France Inter, Damon also suggests he's going to record a solo album next year. You can listen to the interview here.

Last but not least, he has released another Africa album, Kinshasa One Two, under the name DRC Music via Wrap.