Damon Albarn’s Equipment
@DamonInstrument
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Listing musical equipment, instruments Damon Albarn has been using throughout his career. Feel free to ask us questions, send us suggestions or special requests
Studio 13, Devon/London
Joined October 2023
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Let’s make a thread of Damon’s use of his iPad.
Since 2010 Damon never ceased to create on his iPad:
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There’s music everywhere
Everyday Robots was released 10 years ago, we’d like to talk about the different samples used in Damon’s first debut album.
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A thread of some references, direct samples I noticed in Blur! Feel free to add some you noticed!
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Released today in 1997 'On Your Own' by Blur. It features a Roland TR-606 Drumatix, here’s a little thread:
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“It just came like that?”
We all remember when this got viral last year.. here’s Damon explaining the famous Rock 1 preset on the Omnichord OM-300 used on Gorillaz 'Clint Eastwood'
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The Source
From Blur, to The Rentals and Gorillaz, a thread:
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The Moog Little Phatty has been a major element in Damon's music since the making of Plastic Beach.
Here’s a thread on it..
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Damon at the Vintage Synthesizer Museum, on the Fender Rhodes Student Piano KBS 7024
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Happy Birthday Noodle!
Small thread of Damon and Noodle sharing a Baby Taylor BT1 with the Banksy sticker "Americans Working Overhead" from 2004
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Damon with Graham's Telecaster ☺️
Of course the reference is obvious there!!
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Let’s talk about the Yamaha QY10,
Damon got his QY-10 second-hand for $100 in San Francisco, 1993.
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Here’s Damon during his first trip to Mali with kids from the village playing with a Casio SK-60 sampler. Damon is sampling their voices there which you can hear from the small built-in speaker. (line in/out is modded)
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Everyday Robots, complexity between fear of technology and using it as a tool:
We thought it would be important to mention his iPad as an equipment, something that follows him everywhere with his music too..
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Damon: "He’s a really fantastic musician (Graham), and it’s always a pleasure to play with him. I think when we started he was more accomplished than I was but I think I’ve worked really, really hard and I can keep up with him now..
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Damon stealing his bandmates' respective instruments
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Damon Albarn owns the Boss VT-1 Voice Transformer, his first ever voice changer. It was used for different projects, Blur, Gorillaz or even Monkey: Journey to the West (2008)
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Lot 105 Organ
The Hammond Organ 126 JM (Romance series) from 1978 was acquired by Damon Albarn at an auction for £150. It shaped the sound of Blur, starting with Parklife and reinforced The Specials influence. It can be found in many Blur songs and Damon’s projects.
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Wurlitzer 106P a 44-note electric piano
This model dates back from the early 1970s. It was confirmed that Damon’s custom face-plate is from Mike and Mike’s Guitar Bar, modded by Brad Purker, purchased by Damon in 2015
Thank you
@glowrillazart
for suggesting it might be the one!
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A turning point in his career:
During his trip to Mali for Oxfam (2000), Damon Albarn intents on getting together with his favourite musicians. He chose the melodica to follow Malian rhythms and chords.
Here, he is using the Samick M36N melodihorn
Pictures by Greg Williams
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Damon and his Fenders
The world's foremost manufacturer of guitars, basses.. some are in Damon’s collection! Fender has always been there along Blur with Graham (and his famous 52 Telecaster) or Alex (with his Precision bass) multiple models have followed Damon through the years.
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In the session, Blur playing tracks from The Magic Whip, Damon uses the Yamaha Portasound VSS-100 on Mirrorball, Ong Ong (Musicbox voice), New World Towers, Lonesome Street (sounds like the slapsynth voice?)
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The Now Now Artwork inspiration ?
In the documentary Reject False Icons, when Jamie Hewlett suggests drawing 2D with a guitar: the National Triolian Steel body, resonator guitar (Green) seems to be the perfect inspiration choice.
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Africa Express played a beautiful set yesterday at Bahidorá!
Damon played the melodica (plus on keys: Prophet Rev2, Wurli 200A).
The Suzuki Pro37, a model he has been using for a couple of years now
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Found his Transcendent 2000 and his strobe light
Mentioned in The Narcissist by Blur, this gear had a huge importance for Damon in his teenage years.
He used to switch the light off in his room with a strobe light and watch himself, imagining he was David Bowie in Ashes To Ashes
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Happy World Piano Day!
Here’s a thread with a few quotes and more on Damon and his love for the piano
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Here Damon Albarn is using the Fostex XR3 Multitracker 4 Track
This video from The South Bank Show (1999) shows him using it to record his Archtop guitar. The demo can definitely corresponds to the track Hand Clapper (Man Research) released on the Gorillaz 20th Anniversary Boxset
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Let’s talk about the Casiotone MT-40, the Jamaican influence on Humanz and Meanwhile.
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Blur are back tonight! Soundchecking Goodbye Albert, for this song Damon uses the Korg MicroKorgXL
What songs are you hoping to hear tonight?!
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The Wurlitzer SideMan 1959
Part of Damon’s collection of drum machines, the first to be commercialised, it can be heard on Humility (Gorillaz) and on The Nearer The Fountain More Pure The Stream Flows
A thread on how it works, Humility, TNTF and its history:
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Instruments / musical toys used during the Song Machine live performance and musical (or not) toys use or sampled in Damon’s music, a thread:
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Released on 21st November 2010: Doncamatic by Gorillaz
(As much as our account initially lists Damon’s instruments, we’re trying things out 😅 please let us know what you think!)
The Donca Matic - the groundbreaking Japanese-designed drum machine which started the Korg Company
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Damon Albarn has been using the 1967 WEM/Watkins Rapier Bass for most of his bass work on various projects, first seen in the Gorillaz documentary Bananaz
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Damon uses the Korg RK-100s (black and white models).
He started using it mainly on the Humanz Tour on Ascension, Let Me Out, Strobelite, Garage Palace, We Got The Power..
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So sad to hear about the loss of Toumani Diabaté, the master kora player. My condolences to his family.
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From 1995, the Korg BX-3 (gen 1) was used during Blur live performances along with the classic Korg MS-10
Live At Later, 1995
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"We got the power to be ringing the great bell out there above us"
Did you know about Damon and his love for bells?
Here’s a few examples 🔔
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Damon Albarn owns a Moog One Polyphonic Analog Synthesizer, it can be seen in multiple videos in Studio 13 such as Momentary Bliss- Gorillaz feat Slowthai
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'Dancehall' (Blur) sampled 'Suzy Creamcheese' by Teddy and His Patches
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Let’s talk about the Rhodes Chroma, and the Polaris
It has been quite used on a lot of different projects from Plastic Beach to The Nearer The Fountain More Pure The Stream Flows and more
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Absolutely love everytime Damon mentions this:
"Graham sometimes leaves the acoustic parts on records to me because I play in a slightly unconventional way, I’m left handed, and I always leave the to p-E and B strings ringing because I never learned how to play barre chords..
Graham, Damon and Alex talk making of Blur's album 13. Interesting, a bit nerdy stuff – Guitar Player (May 1999 issue), new in DAU Archive.
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Damon often said he’s addicted to that moment of creation: "If you love making music why don’t you do it as much as you can"
The iPad is the perfect tool to compensate for this constant need of creation that Albarn has.
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The "Essex" acoustic guitar
Damon Albarn and his Sunburst Epiphone PR-350. Seen a lot in 1997, this guitar was customized with various stickers hiding the famous "E" logo brand but making it even more iconic
Pictures by Paul Postle
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The most famous used of the Sideman in Damon’s career can be with Gorillaz - Humility (The Now Now 2018), introducing the album, it uses the Tango preset. The process of it was documented in Reject False Icons.
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the opening of Super Castlevania IV
@DamonInstrument
I'm curious as to where the alien drone effect is from in the first 3 seconds of the universal - I've heard it being used in an amateur theatre production before but can't find the origin 😭
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A beautifully refurbished Liebmann harmonium in Damon’s Icelandic house.
Used on multiple songs on The Nearer The Fountain More Pure The Stream Flows: Combustion, Daft Wader, Darkness To Light, Giraffe Trumpet Sea; it was seen in the visuals shared, and for its promotion.
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Let’s talk about Hammond Chord Organ S112.
I would of course associate it mainly with The Nearer The Fountain More Pure The Stream Flows
Along with the Liebmann Harmonium and a Rösler Piano Damon had the Hammond S112 in his Icelandic home for the project
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Rose Sparkle 44 note
In 2022 Damon asked Vintage Vibe for a new studio piano. They built this beautiful custom Rose Sparkle 44 note piano with FX Loop and Variable Vibrato.
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I believe Damon owns multiple Farfisas so let’s talk about some.
Founded in 1946, Farfisa is a sort of an acronym for: "FAbbriche Riunite De FISArmoniche", which translates to "United Factory of Accordions", They went on to produce Organ, Accordion-like, synth (1960s-1970s)
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You can find a lot of GarageBand samples in "The Now Now" :
on “Fire flies” with the Sun Glitters Pad
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With Tape Notes podcast, we are invited to the inside of The Ballad Of Darren and we can hear the demos of The Ballad, St. Charles Square, The Narcissist and The Height made on his iPad during the Gorillaz 2022 tour
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Let’s start with the obvious: " The Fall '', Gorillaz album following Plastic Beach, was written in a short period of time during the Plastic Beach tour in 2010. This album was written very extraordinarily mostly on iPad using more than 20 different apps
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Speak It ! Text to Speech, SoundyThingie, Sylo Synthesiser, FunkBox Drum Machine, AmpliTubefor iPad, XENON Groove, Korg iElecribe, bismark bs-16i, Mellotronics M3000, Cleartune Tuner, iORGEL HD, StudioMini XL Recording Studio, Bassline, Harmonizer, Dub Siren Pro, Moog Filtatron..
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I already talked about the Optigan in a different post: it uses clear discs encoded with optical tracks containing sample notes to be played on the panel. The 'Waltz Time' disc was used on 'Optigan 1' and the 'Pop Piano Plus Guitar' disc on 'Caramel'.
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Now let’s talk about (possible) references, inspirations..
Let’s start with the infamous Bowie and Eno inspiration on 'M.O.R'. This song borrows the chord progression plus the call and response chorus of 'Boys Keep Swinging' and ‘Fantastic Voyage' by David Bowie.
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Another sample is in "The Selfish Giant", the story written by Oscar Wilde, composed by Kenny Clayton and read by Robert Morley from 1976.
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Another synth in Damon’s collection, the Arp Quartet!
It was used for Gorillaz (Self titled, Demon Days, Plastic Beach..)
You can hear it quite well on 'The Great Fire' (The Good The Bad The Queen, Merrie Land, 2018)
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Now Damon uses GarageBand on his iPad: to be specific we believe he uses an iPad Air Cellular. GarageBand was launched to IOS in 2011, this software includes pre-made loops, keyboards, drum machines, instrumental effects and voice recordings.
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One thing I associate Blur with a lot, especially on Parklife and The Great Escape, is field reccording, children playground, traffic, dog, seagull.. Some of them come directly from Stephen Street’s BBC Sound Effect disc, on 'Ernold Same', 'Clover Over Dover', 'Anniversary Waltz'
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Of course the reference is obvious there!!
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or “Lake Zurich” choir (possibly the Airhorn Anthem Leads/Slower Attack)
(I would not dare call myself a musician but this is a GarageBand screen recording from my iPad)
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A long thread on Damon and his Fender Guitars coming soon, stay tuned!
(No puns intended)
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This Mustang probably !
Some others Fenders found in Damon’ studio 13:
Fender Precision
Fender Mustang guitar
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Everyday Robots, Heavy Seas of Love and Mr Tembo:
Lord Buckley appears multiple times through the album. He opens and closes the album. The sample comes from "The Gasser" taken from So You Thought Hip Was New Feb.12,1959 the Ivar Concert album.
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“Food processors are great” on 'Advert' (MLIR) comes from the Shopping Channel at Maison Rouge and was sampled by Damon with a Casio SK1.
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And Garageband made it on some songs or versions of songs!
In the Humanz: Super Deluxe edition, GarageBand can still be heard on the tracks, with the examples of Grilling With His Face, Long Beach.
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Photographs (You Are Taking Now):
Using this abstract from Timothy Leary, The Psychedelics Experience, most famous for his passion for transcending experiences, was a brilliant metaphor and response to the memory Damon had of people taking pictures of an eclipse
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On 'Bugman', Damon sings "Space is the place" which is of course a reference to 'Space is the Place'. by Sun Ra.
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On Your Own Roland TR-606 drum machine!
A couple of weeks ago in Mexico (via Isaac Zasa)
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And on Song Machine with the most recognisable sample: the Song Machine Theme one!
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The lead single for TBOD 'The Narcissist' was released a year ago
Found his Transcendent 2000 and his strobe light
Mentioned in The Narcissist by Blur, this gear had a huge importance for Damon in his teenage years.
He used to switch the light off in his room with a strobe light and watch himself, imagining he was David Bowie in Ashes To Ashes
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..They talk about it as a terrible era when kids were put in Portakabins because of lack of investment in education. But some of my most important decisions in life were made in Portakabins." MOJO Magazine
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The sample technique is very similar to the one used on Bobby Womack "The Bravest Man of The Universe" album, produced by Damon and Richard Russell. And for Everyday Robots, as it is an autobiographical album, field recordings helped illustrate Damon's journey.
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We already made a post on the melodica Samick M36N but it is amazing seeing more footage. Damon talks about the spontaneous feeling with the melodica, the adaptability of that instrument.
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We know we haven't been really active recently but we'll be coming back in 2024 with a special post!! 👀
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Got it?
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In 'Dan Abnormal' the repetition of the "TV" in Dan watches TV is a direct reference to 'Ex Lion Tamer"'on Wire’s Pink Flag album: "Stay glued to your TV set…TV…"
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..I was sort of going through my exams on the piano and violin, less successfully on the violin. And he wasn’t so much doing that, but he just had so much natural music in him. But, you know, we were very lucky to meet each other..
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I always thought that 'Trimm Trabb' resemble 'Wined and Dined' by Syd Barrett. Again, another inspiration for Graham and Damon that can be heard since Seymour.
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It started on Damon’s four-track with the Omnichord OM-300 preset and some guitar. The preset remained, you’ve got a keyboard bass: Moog Rogue and a Roland JV on the fills. You add the Solina String Ensemble, some live percussions, piano, Damon’s iconic Melodica, of course Del..
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Hostiles and Hollow Ponds:
They both contains a sample of the playground of Damon's school in Leytonstone. In the video, Damon talks about field recording on Hollow Ponds. You can also hear trains leaving Leytonstone station.
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Damon on the violin 😆
at Orquesta de reciclados de Cateura
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And here’s Damon is holding a Fender guitar too. Definitely in April 1996 either for M6 Hit Party show or Taratata rehearsals maybe. I like to believe he picked up Graham’s Telecaster there ☺️
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The impact this had on Damon as a musician is clear to see, the collaborative process through spontaneity, working with these musicians was the best way to become sympathetic to other cultures, to use music as language that can bring people together.
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Both 'London Loves' and 'St Charles Square' has that element of Robert Fripp guitar in "Scary Monsters". To quote Damon on this: "Graham has always been frippy!" and Graham never denied his influence!
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In the fantastic Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe, Damon revealed he wrote the intro of 'Connection' (Elastica) on the QY-10. We can easily recognise the V11 Distorted Guitar here, a connection is made!
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It gave us beautifully reworked versions of Damon’ songs. It suits Damon’ sound perfectly, having a different range between a clear, almost like bell sound or hitting a more mellow sound. This variety of sound makes it easily suitable for Damon’s various catalog.
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Taylor GS Mini
Fun fact, Damon struggles with bar chords! "if you play ascending bar chords on a guitar, then sometimes the top two strings clash. So I got rid of those. I guess I could have learnt to play it properly" 😄
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But Damon doesn't only use Garageband on his Ipad. One of his favorite apps is Djembeföla which was used during the writing of Le Vol du Boli
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the Coffee and TV guitar tried to steal the iconic look by the way
The "Essex" acoustic guitar
Damon Albarn and his Sunburst Epiphone PR-350. Seen a lot in 1997, this guitar was customized with various stickers hiding the famous "E" logo brand but making it even more iconic
Pictures by Paul Postle
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Here’s a rare first performance in 2000 of the Ed Case Re-Fix of Clint Eastwood performed live at the Notting Hill Carnival with Sweetie Irie
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We already mentioned the iELECTRIBE Gorillaz Edition, a touch screen Electribe edition for the iPad. This app was released in 2011, (The Fall). It allows users to create remixes using Gorillaz songs and singles, plus The Fall album.
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By the way I believe the first time Damon brought it on stage was for Beyond the rabbit hole, Wonderland
Wurlitzer 106P a 44-note electric piano
This model dates back from the early 1970s. It was confirmed that Damon’s custom face-plate is from Mike and Mike’s Guitar Bar, modded by Brad Purker, purchased by Damon in 2015
Thank you
@glowrillazart
for suggesting it might be the one!
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You & Me:
The samples there are evocative of the spirit and ghost of Notting Hill festival. Damon explained it could be seen as a reference to heroin one of his ghost, the sound, the energy of a carnival and then nothing.
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