Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots

Nach 25 Jahren mit Blur und Gorillaz veröffentlicht Damon Albarn mit "Everyday Robots" dieser Tage sein erstes Soloalbum. Und eigentlich weiß man bei den den zahlreichen Ausflügen in Richtung Britpop, Krautrock, Indierock, Hip Hop, Weltmusik, Musical, Soundtrack usw. gar nicht, was einen nun erwarten soll, oder?

Doch Albarn steigt für "Everyday Robots" erneut auf den "Melancholie Hill", ist "Out Of Time" und serviert uns eine persönliche, verhaltene und gleichzeitig bedrückende Songsammlung zwischen Folk, Singer/Songwriter und Soul, die sich textlich mit dem Thema "Natur versus Technologie" auseinandersetzt. Zumeist hören wir Damons Stimme zu Piano oder Synthies, dazu gibt es dann dezentes elektronisches Gefrickel und Geplucker, Stimm-Samples (von Timothy Leary auf "Photographs (You are Taking Now)" und gleich mehrfach von Richard Buckley), Streicher, Bläser  und Chorgesang.

"Mr. Tembo", der beschwingte Song für einen kleinen Elefanten, der im Hintergrundgesang auch mit Elementen der afrikanischen Musik spielt, stellt hier die einzige Ausnahme dar.

Als Gäste wirken neben den Produzenten und Besitzer von XL Recordings Richard Russell, der auch die Songs gemeinsam mit Albarn schrieb, Brian Eno, Natasha Khan (Bat For Lasches) und The Leytonstone City Mission Chor, ein Londoner Kirchenchor, mit.

Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots (Official Video) on MUZU.TV.

The Independent vergibt für "Everyday Robots" 4/5 Punkten:

The Lord Buckley quote which opens it – “they didn’t know where they was going, but they knew where they was wasn’t it” – reflects both Albarn’s restless musical imagination, and his youthful peregrination between Leytonstone and Essex. The journey swings between urban-cosmopolitan and rural-English, the divergent poles of a personality that enables him to stand alongside quintessentially English songwriters such as Ray Davies.

But rather than his cheery pop muse, the arrangements reveal the melancholy in his memories of swimming in a Leytonstone pond, travelling America on a tourbus or wandering through Notting Hill after the Carnival. Pastel melodies of simple piano figures are set to glitchy percussion loops, found sounds and poignant strings, with glimpses of wistful harmonium, flugelhorn or swirling synth, while Albarn revisits his childhood home to find the street he lived in now truncated by the M11 link road, or frets about the way that machines insert themselves between us: “We are everyday robots on our phones... looking like standing stones, out there on our own.”

The only moment of outright jollity arrives on “Mr Tembo”, a ukulele-driven song about  a baby elephant: fittingly, the gospel choir bringing uplift to its chorus is from the church at the end of his Leytonstone road. It’s a rare moment of extrovert cheer on an intimate, introspective album that takes tentative  steps to reveal the soul behind the star.

Damon Albarn - Lonely Press Play on MUZU.TV.

Clashmusic sieht es ähnlich und kommt für "Everyday Robots" auf 8/10 Punkte:

Albarn appears to be railing against the technological oppression of 21st century living, whether proclaiming that “it’s hard to be a lover when the TV’s on” on ‘The Selfish Giant’ (featuring Natasha Khan, aka Bat For Lashes) or exploring the idea that humans will evolve to the point where their hands only have strong scrolling thumbs.

Musically, the penchant for subtle melody that he has explored so well through The Good, The Bad & The Queen and some of the less chart-conquering Gorillaz material burns bright. The seven-minute sprawl of ‘You And Me’, another Eno collaboration, seems to be mooching along demurely before dropping down to a steel drum from which it rebuilds, sounding like the fuzzy early hours of a summer’s morning and topped with a fragile falsetto that provides the album’s highpoint.

The phrase ‘slow-burner’ is tossed around rather carelessly, but ‘Everyday Robots’ is a definite contender. Weeks on from the first listen, it feels like it’s always been there. It doesn’t burn out so much as creep up and these songs offer yet another new guise for a remarkable talent.