15. The Magic Whip – Blur

The saturated motion blur of passing storefronts glows through the raindrop-covered window as the enchanting keyboards of The Magic Whip take you on a nighttime taxi ride through the neon streets of Hong Kong. After being away from the music scene for over a decade, the charismatic Britpop band Blur resurfaces with a slow-burning sound that radiates with the group’s crimson charm. The album embodies a rhythmic fluidity that allows the tracks to blend seamlessly into each other from the soulful “My Terracotta Heart” to the somber “There Are Too Many of Us.” Drifting along the album’s soothing daydream, lead singer Damon Albarn muses about loss of time and the uncertainty of relationships from a comfortably idle perspective, audible in the dragging guitar chords and sleepy melodies. But there is something notably magnetic in the decades-old band’s matured sound, a soft, meditative allure that keeps me listening. Blur may have been out of the game for a while, but it doesn’t seem as if they were moving on but as if they were frozen on the shimmering streets of Kowloon City in a suspended still life that is The Magic Whip.