Blur & Gorillaz frontman to release album about 16th century advisor to Elizabeth I

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"Dr Dee," a new studio album by Damon Albarn (frontman of Blur and Gorillaz), will be released May 8, and it's about something that doesn't offer appear on typical albums.

According to a press release: Dr Dee is an 18 track work inspired by the life of John Dee (1527-1608), mathematician, alchemist, philosopher and advisor to Elizabeth I. Dee is a singular enigma: an Englishman so influential that he defined how we measure years, so quintessential that he lives on in Shakespeare's words; yet so shrouded in mystery that he's fallen from the very pages of history itself. Described by Albarn as "strange pastoral folk," the music of Dr Dee is a fitting companion to the end of another Elizabethan age. The album combines Albarn's voice with early English choral and instrumentation alongside modern, West African and Renaissance sounds. Dr Dee was recorded late last year in Albarn's West London studio and also in Salford with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. The album was mixed by Valgeir Sigursson in Reykjavik. View trailer here: http://youtu.be/Zskz5TCaxLE A stage production created by Albarn and Rufus Norris, depicting Dee's fall from prominence to poverty and isolation will play at English National Opera this summer as part of the Cultural Olympiad.