Hong Kong's impact on Blur like Berlin's on David Bowie, Damon Albarn says
British indie band's new album was made in - and influenced by - Hong Kong during their sojourn here in 2013
Blur appear to have discovered their inner Chinese. The indie-rock veterans, who came to prominence during the 1990s Britpop era, might still be widely regarded as the personification of Englishness, but for their new album the band looked East for inspiration.
And not just looked, but also travelled: the main recording sessions for took place in mid-2013 at Avon Studios in Kowloon. "We definitely drew on influences from our time out there, in a similar way to how we used to draw on influences from the London environment," says the band's guitarist, Graham Coxon.
Then there's the band name and album title on the album cover, which are written in Chinese, next to an image of an ice cream rendered in the style of a neon Hong Kong sign. A real-life version of the same ice cream being prepared by a Chinese woman can be seen in the video for the album's first single, , along with Chinese subtitles.
The inspiration for isn't too hard to divine, and neither, venturing further afield, is the influence behind .
was announced on February 19, the first day of the Lunar New Year, at a press conference at London's Golden Phoenix Chinese restaurant. It will be released on April 27 in the Year of the Goat, as was Blur's previous album, 2003's .
