When you have a catalog a large as Damon Albarn’s, a few gems are bound to be missed. Such is usually that case with his 2002 Mali Music, in which Albarn visited the African country to record with local musicians. The album represents one of the most seemless integrations of African and European music we’ve ever heard, and still sits near the top of our list of hidden gems.

A decade later and it appears that Albarn is trying to recapture some of that magic, in a more high-profile way, taking along Western musicians such as Dan the Automator, (XL Recordings head) Richard Russell, Actress and, as we learned at MELT! festival this weekend, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. The project, entitled DRC Music, will be a benefit album for Oxfam to be released on Warp Records.

The group of producers arrived in Kinshasa a few hours ago and have promised to document the whole journey on Twitter and Tumblr.

RELATED POSTS:

• Hear First Songs From Damon Albarn’s DRC Congo Project The term “world music” has unfashionable in the past decade, but if one person can make it cool again, it...
• WATCH Damon Albarn Video – Gorillaz Greatest Hit Announced Damon Albarn might just be the most unfuckwitable musician of the past two decades? Wanna test this theory? For starters...
• Watch: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – American Dream Part II Above, you can watch the latest video from Oxford’s Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs for “American Dream Part II...
• STREAM Bobby Womack :: “Please Forgive My Heart” (Prod. by Damon Albarn) Looking back on Gorillaz 2010 album, Plastic Beach, the high point of the album is still 68-year-old soul singer Bobby W...
• HEAR Damon Albarn & Flea’s New Song With Erykah Badu :: “Hey Shooter” It was one of the more complexing collaborations we’ve heard of in recent memory, even by the collab-happy Damon A...