This past October, Damon Albarn told a reporter he and Noel Gallagher had buried the hatchet, and this month’s Brit Awards gave us the instant-awkward-classic photo to prove it. In another bizarre turn of events, it appears the Blur-Gorillaz maestro and the former Oasis songwriter-guitarist are so simpatico they’re making oddly similar music. Let’s review the evidence below.
Gallagher has said his follow-up to debut solo album Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds will be a collaboration with Amorphous Androgynous, an offshoot of long-running post-rave boundary-pushers Future Sound of London. As Consequence of Sound points out, the first taste of Gallagher’s sessions with Amorphous Androgynous has emerged, as the B-side of a new solo single. The result, “Shoot a Hole Into the Sun,” is a sprawling, eight-minute excursion that recalls the luxe strings, svelte organs, and bubble-bath bass of Air circa Moon Safari, only with Gallagher’s own floaty falsetto, and, of course, the type of rock drumming and acid-fried guitar you’d expect from the Oasis clan.
What’s most striking, albeit undoubtedly coincidental, about “Shoot a Hole Into the Sun,” however, is how much it has in common with Albarn’s most recent — and, it must be said, vastly superior — offering. No, not “DoYaThing.” The first studio track from Albarn’s Rocket Juice and the Moon project with Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and great Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen, Erykah Badu-sung “Hey Shooter,” is also — obviously — a collaboration. It also involves shooting, and the sun, and spacey, dance-driven, free-form freakouts. But it’s a whole lot funkier.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6dWBDdLwnbA
What do you think? With Blur back together again, can we rekindle the Blur-Oasis feud, too? Are Albarn and Gallagher using the same drug dealer? Is sci-fi psych-groove the new Britpop? The answer to all of these questions, of course: Definitely maybe.