Damon Albarn review – anecdotes and emotion

Manchester Central
While the music, a mix of new songs and old hits, is often melancholy, Damon Albarn is on unusually chatty form before a grateful audience

It's been some journey, these past 16 months of Covid-related stress, grief and restrictions. And for Damon Albarn, to add to the darkness, was the death of his close friend and long-time collaborator, the drummer Tony Allen.

In the months leading up to the pandemic, Albarn was working on songs for a new album, The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows, a project inspired by Iceland, where he has a house overlooking a black sand beach, the sea and the mountains. It's a long way from the greyhound-racing venue in London that featured on the artwork for Blur's 1994 Parklife album; a long way geographically and musically too - the new work is quiet, delicate, reflective. This has become a hallmark of Albarn's career - musical shifts and intriguing detours.