After seven solo albums, Tempest had begun thinking about working with others, and so the night before the recording session, he and Chatten repaired to Albarn's studio and wrote their verses together, responding to each other. It seemed to work really well, he says: A true collaboration. Nevertheless, he concedes, the actual recording of Flags proved to be quite the baptism of fire.
After 658 days of the Israeli government's retaliation to Hamas's attack in October 2023, it feels like my heart has reached its capacity for stories of children in excruciating pain.