Damon Albarn, is well known as the primary songwriter for the Britpop band Blur and internationally as the lead vocalist and songwriter for the Gorillaz. He is putting his creativity to work once again, by travel to the foreign land of Congo where there is so much strife and violence. Damon's main purpose for this trip was to record an album that would capture the pain engulfing this area of the world. Congo is known for its corruption, poverty, and mostly it civil wars and Damon would like to bring these issues to the attention of the world. What I really like about this whole idea of Damon capturing the sounds of Congo was it’s not just him going out sitting on some hill with his eyes closed in Congo with body guards around him, he is having producers come in and record the musicians of this land, they will then go back to the Macs and manipulate those sounds in which they heard. Damon also wanted every sound that they used to manipulate to come from being in Congo. I visited iTunes and listen to the album, as I sat with my eyes closed I imagined myself as a tourist that happen to be walking in the streets of Congo and stumbled upon these musicians that were playing this music to earn money for their families. I think the music is brilliant and its really neat to see how Congo's music and the music we listen to in the states have a lot of the same similarities. Although the music doesn’t have many words at all you can feel what is being expressed through the percussion type instruments, the chimes, and woodwinds. Kinshasa One Two has this refreshing sound that gives a new light to what real music sounds and feels like. The release of the album Kinshasa One Two is available on iTunes with all proceed to benefit the organization Oxfam.
