Kaktus Einarsson and Damon Albarn combine on new song ‘Gumbri’. The Icelandic composer has completed his new album, with ‘Lobster Coda’ set to land on October 25th via One Little Independent. The songwriting engages with family life and recovery, with mental health and continuance, joined by some close friends and special collaborators.

Take new song ‘Gumbri’. Out now, there’s a painfully personal aspect to it, with no less than Damon Albarn recruited to help bring it to life. The two go back a long way, seemingly – Kaktus played trumpet on ‘Stop The Dams’ aged a mere 15, before being flown to London to work on Damon’s debut solo album ‘Everyday Robots’.

The blur maestro is keen to repay the favour, and appears on this new song. Kaktus takes up the story..

. After one or two margaritas on New Year’s Eve, we were chatting about music, the future and playing some demos. Before my demo of Gumbri came on, I joked that it would be a track he’d want to feature on.

A few bars into the song, he looked at me and said ‘yeah, ok!’ I didn’t think much of it for a few days, until Damon’s studio manager called 4 th of January and asked me for the stems. I already thought it was one of the best songs I had for the record, so to have my good friend and mentor joining me on it is a pure pleasure . Tune in now.

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