Watch the Video Damon Albarn Filmed on His Tablet, ‘Lonely Press Play’
Perhaps taking a cue from the thousands of phones and tablets that film him at concerts, Damon Albarn shot the video for “Lonely Press Play,” a track off his forthcoming solo debut Everyday Robots, by filming it entirely on his tablet. He captured the footage for the video guerilla-style (or is that Gorillaz-style?) in a variety of locations that one might expect to find Albarn (Tokyo, London, Dallas, Utah, Iceland, Colchester, England and Devon, England) and one unusual one (North Korea). Motion is the star of the video, with shots of moving roads and airplane wings contrasting with the chill nature of the song.
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Recently, Albarn told Rolling Stone that his interest in filming his surroundings was tied to a reflective mood he found himself in while working on Everyday Robots. “I started at the beginning by going back to the neighborhood where I grew up and walking around and filming stuff with my iPad,” he said. “It was like my own archaeological dig, cordoning off areas that I wanted to concentrate on.”
In other Damon-Albarn-using-a-mobile-device-to-film-things news, the Blur frontman shot footage of a mariachi band playing a medley of Beatles songs – “Yesterday,” “Yellow Submarine” and “Michelle” – and dedicated it to Paul McCartney. “I thought you might appreciate these guys,” he said in the clip, which NME posted in association with giving McCartney the Songwriter’s Songwriter trophy at its awards show.
Albarn will find himself on the other end of the mobile device soon enough, though, when he begins touring in support of Everyday Robots, which comes out April 29th. (He’ll be joined by new live band the Heavy Seas.) The musician recently told Rolling Stone that he would play songs from all of his bands over the years – Blur, Gorillaz, the Good the Bad and the Queen – in addition to songs on the new record. “I’m thinking about playing one Blur song I’d completely forgotten: it’s the B-side to ‘Beetlebum’ called ‘All Your Life,'” he said. “We just played that today, so it’s fresh in my mind.”
Here are his current world tour dates:
2/28 Manchester, United Kingdom – BBC Radio 6 Music Festival
3/12 Austin, TX – NPR Music Showcase @ Stubb’s BBQ (SXSW)
4/30 London, UK – The Rivoli Ballroom
5/1 London, UK – Great Hall, Queen Mary University
5/3 Murcia, Spain – Festival SOS 4.8
5/5 Paris, France – Alhambra Paris
6/6 – 6/8 New York, NY – Governors Ball Music Festival
6/12 – 6/15 Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival
6/27 Beuningen, Netherlands – Down The Rabbit Hole Festival
6/30 Berlin, Germany – Astra Kulturhaus
7/1 Hamburg, Germany – Gross Freiheit 36
7/3 Werchter, Belgium – Rock Werchter
7/4 Roskilde, Denmark – Roskilde Festival
7/9 Paris, France – Days Off Festival
7/14 Brescia, Italy – Teatro Vittoriale
7/15 Rome, Italy – Auditorium Cavea
7/19 Beccles, United Kingdom – Latitude Festival 2014