The brilliant Blur guitarist finally digs into his archive, unveiling a collection of rarities with a deliciously sixties aroma.
At Blur, he embodies the introverted guitarist who penned Britpop’s most memorable riffs and made thick-framed glasses look effortlessly cool. With The Waeve, who is poised to release their third album in 2027, he holds his own opposite his partner Rose Elinor Dougall on tracks crafted with as much finesse as tenderness. Yet Graham Coxon also maintains a solo career that produced eight albums from 1998 to 2012.
This year, his label is launching a step-by-step rerelease of his entire captivating catalog, beginning with the stunning The Sky Is Too High (1998) and The Golden D (2000), his first two solo chapters.
“These albums represent different aspects of who I was, he explains, like molts shed from my skin. Reissuing these albums that I find underrated gives them the chance to be underrated again. It’s a kind of overhaul or a gastric reflux.”
Slyly smiling, he removes his glasses to ruffle his hair. At 57, now sober and a fulfilled family man (“I feel good, for a change,” he tells us), the Englishman still bears a striking resemblance to the scruffy, endearing teenager he was at Blur’s early days, a persona that sometimes needed solitude to protect itself.
“I wanted to follow my own thoughts, to experiment with a sound and lyrics that didn’t fit Blur. At school, people mocked my songs, so I was convinced I wasn’t very strong at songwriting.”
One day, a friend of mine had a film project that never came to be, but he asked me to compose the soundtrack. That’s how Me You, We Two and A Day Is Far Too Long were born [two tracks on The Sky Is Too High], and I quickly grew fond of working with my little four-track. It was a healthy pursuit for me in the late 1990s when Blur wasn’t touring or in the studio.
Far from a simple recreational project, this solid solo career affords the chance to see this guitar hero perform in intimate venues and to hear his delicate voice. In 2011, as he was recording what would become A+E, his eighth album, he set aside some songs and grouped them under the title Castle Park.
He would perform a few excerpts live (notably When You Find Out, a vibrant cover of the Nerves, and Billy Says, a superb potential single), mentioning the album from time to time in interviews or in his autobiography. The Englishman then turned his attention to film scores and collaborations (most recently on the charity compilation Help(2) with English Teacher and Olivia Rodrigo).
Castle Park lingered in a drawer until this long-awaited release, alongside the 2026 reissues, and we finally get to hear these ten tracks, which swing between nostalgic sixties-pop in the Kinks vein (Dripping Soul, Isn’t It Funny), string-laden baroque pop (Melody for Christine), and early Motown soul (Forget Today). Hidden treasures that fans had longed for and that were well worth the wait.
Castle Park (Transgressive Records/Fuga). Release on June 12.
