Blur in Focus

If jumping up and down on an abandoned trailer in Morocco is what it takes for Blur front man Damon Albarn to find the right sound — so be it. One man's ranting antic is another's creative ritual, and this one turns up as the rhythmic squeaking on the track Gene by Gene from the band's just-released seventh album, Think Tank.

But it's also understandable that after 14 years, guitarist Graham Coxon finally decided he'd had enough of Albarn's calisthenics, and left the band in September last year, soon after work on the record began. The real reasons...