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Damon Albarn Confirms Blur LP, Works With Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Franz Ferdinand Friends

Damon Albarn Alex Kapranos Nick Zinner Oxfam Syria

This Saturday (July 13), London will play host to the Independent Label Market, an annual event that gives music imprints the opportunity to sell directly to fans via booths that are usually heavy on vinyl and well-stocked with rarities. The 2013 iteration will feature a series of very limited 12-inch singles whose proceeds will benefit Oxfam’s Syria Crisis Appeal, and the flagship release will feature an impressive one-off supergroup of sorts.

“Latest Style” by Fresh Touch will include contributions from: Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz); Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Atoms for Peace); Alex Kapranos (Franz Ferdinand); and Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, SPIN’s 100 Best Drummers). The project itself is anchored by XL Recordings founder Richard Russell and producer Rodaidh McDonald (the xx, Adele, King Krule, Bobby Womack) and released a song called “Harar Rhythm” last year.

The Oxfam-benefitting series will include 10 singles in total — Four Tet, Beth Orton, Django Django, Scott & Charlene’s Wedding, and Charli XCX also contribute — each of which is limited to 50 copies. They will be hand-numbered with an etching on the B-side and sold for £10 apiece. There will also be a live eBay auction of the entire set to run in conjunction with the event, which takes place at Old Spitalfields Market, via NME.

In other Albarn news, his theatrical collaboration with Jamie Hewlett, Monkey: Journey to the West has just opened in New York at the Lincoln Center. The man also continues to tour as Blur’s frontman while preparing to release a new solo LP which is done, according to the Wall Street Journal. “It’s quite intimate,” Albarn told the newspaper. He also confirmed that Blur will work on a new one once that’s hit shelves.

Fresh Touch’s “Harar Rhythm” in video form: