Damon Albarn was supposed to launch a tour yesterday. Instead, he did a livestream. So it goes.

On his 15-date European outing, Albarn was to perform with a symphony orchestra, debuting material from The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows, his new solo project inspired by the landscapes of Iceland. Because the pandemic has essentially eliminated live music for the time being, he instead presented some version of that show Sunday via one of Boiler Room’s Streaming In Isolation livestreams, performing solo from his home studio, The Barn, alongside recordings from tour rehearsals.

The music is a far cry from Albarn’s work with Blur and Gorillaz — meditative, maudlin, glacially slow, perhaps exactly what you’d expect from a Damon Albarn compositions inspired by the Icelandic wilderness. Credited musicians include several extremely Icelandic names like Bergrún Snaebjörnsdóttir and Sigrún Kristbjörg Jónsdóttir as well as the Verve guitarist Simon Tong, who played with Albarn in the supergroup the Good, The Bad, & The Queen alongside the Clash’s Paul Simonon and the late, great Tony Allen.

Watch the full Boiler Room livestream below.

This reminds me: It would be nice to see a Blur concert someday, though that seemed unlikely even before our current global health crisis.