Guernsey-born DJ, electronic music producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mura Masa (21-year old Alex Crossan) is on the cusp of worldwide recognition. His debut album Mura Masa will be released on 14 July 2017, with a track list that boasts many collaborations with many ascendant music stars, such as Desiigner, Nao, Christine and the Queens, Bonzai, and A. K. Paul.
After glimpsing Crossan’s collaborative efforts with Charli XCX (“1 Night”) and ASAP Rocky (“Love$ick”), fans of his eclectic meditations on young love should be pleased with “Blu”: a slower, and contemplative collaboration with British music veteran Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz). It’s a simple and heartfelt romantic declaration that Albarn wrote for Crossan’s girlfriend, besides being his favourite track on the album: “I’ve managed to get Damon Albarn to sing a love song to my girlfriend, Isn’t this the best present you could ever give someone?” (CoS)
‘You don't seem to understand me when I say I'm feeling blu love
Blu love
When you touch me in that way, I just don't know what to do, love
I'm so in love’
Lyrics: Genius
Albarn proves to be very adept in expressing a contemporary young man’s romantic urgency in the song’s first verse (‘I can't get you out my mind/ You send me pictures/ I ain't calling crisis/ You send the pictures’). Albarn’s lyricism taking on a more abstract character in the second verse, however: ‘If your harp is charged and loaded/ Wait for time to come/ It might take you to Rome/ It's all about religion/ It's all about constructing the chemical reliance on’.
The lush, blissed-out electronic interlude and prolonged sighs that follow spell out the joys and agonies of all this romantic confusion - effectively reinterpreting an age-old quandary for a new generation.
