Damon Albarn’s Everyday Robots meditates poignantly on the global village that technology has made. Both the subject matter of the Blur/Gorillaz leader’s new solo album — due out on April 29 via Warner Bros., and streaming now at iTunes Radio — and the observant, contemplative approach carry over to the project’s videos. Where the dazzling “Everyday Robots” video renders Albarn’s flesh as CGI, the similarly stunning “Lonely Press Play” looks at the world of the globe-trotting traveler, at once majestic and, thanks to time-passing gadgets, relatably mundane.
The clip for Brian Eno collaboration “Heavy Seas of Love” picks up where that last one left off, using more footage Albarn shot around the world and blending it into a beatific, slightly surreal accompaniment for the song’s secular gospel. “Radiance is in you,” Albarn assures, and the video ends with him wading on what looks to be an uncomfortably pebble-filled beach. If EMA’s The Future’s Void and St. Vincent’s Essential St. Vincent suggest more dystopian results from our increasingly networked society, here’s someone — a Gen Xer, at that — who foresees some measure of grace, however rocky the path. Happy Earth Day?
See Albarn perform “El Mañana at SPIN’s Sundance party:
