Damon Albarn is above all things an aesthete.

While fronting Blur, on sophomore album ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’ he crafted an image and sound that was quintessentially British, positioning himself as the inarguable architect of the Britpop sound that dominated the mid-Nineties in the process — but this was the mere germ of his artistic vision.

His status as a pop music — and pop culture — icon would be cemented in his later work with Gorillaz after the seminal group’s dramatic demise. While the seeds of his willingness to experiment with eclectic sounds were sown in the later works of Blur, it was in the “virtual band” that he allowed his taste for esotericism and sonic exploration to come to the fore, driven by his desire to work with an array of other equally talented musicians and artists; from genres as diverse and disparate as punk rock, hip hop, soul and beyond.

‘Everyday Robots’ is not entirely a solo effort from Albarn — the album was produced by Richard Russell, famous with his work with another former collaborator, the late Bobby Womack, and also features contributions from ambient music pioneer Brian Eno and Natasha Khan, a.k.a., Bat for Lashes.

His collaborators assist in moulding ‘Everyday Robots’ into the subdued affair that it is. A conceptual, reflective project, the album examines the notion of nature in opposition to technology while also recanting some of the most significant moments in Albarn’s own life. The album leads with Albarn declaring “we are everyday robots on our phones”, focusing on the future/past, nature/technology dialectic rather than delving immediately into anything outright confessional. Hollow Ponds makes direct reference to dates that obviously hold some personal importance to Albarn, while album highlight Lonely Press Play examines alienation from species being.

In keeping with the central theme of the album, many of the sounds on “Everyday Robots” are electronic but manage to come across rather organically. Glitchy, digital beats are interspersed with sparse piano and acoustic guitars. The samples are mostly spoken words and are carefully placed throughout, taking great care not to undermine Albarn’s paradigm on the displacement between people, modernity and the natural. Though minimal, the album has a strong sense of warmth. Albarn’s vocal having matured significantly from the cool and cocky sneer of Girls And Boys to the honest vulnerability of The History Of A Cheating Heart.

The only missteps on the album are the clumsy placing of the otherwise delightful Mr. Tembo, a ukelele-based tribute to the calving of an elephant which is every bit as ridiculously fun as it sounds.That and how at times “Everyday Robots” is all too true a reflection of Damon Albarn, the man: undoubtedly interesting but somewhat emotionally guarded, offering only glimpses to his innermost thoughts but not even close to entertaining the idea of pressing the issue.

“Everyday Robots” may be the most personal record Albarn has ever made — it is certainly the most introspective project he’s been involved in since Blur’s forgotten classic “13” — but where the albums differ is that while the latter was an almost tragic affair, “Everyday Robots” is a deliberately warm, comforting album.

To quote the man himself, “when you’re lonely, press play”.