Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn on hanging out with old Britpop nemesis Noel Gallagher and the band’s first album in seven years

MOVE over Meg, it’s time to introduce you to Mystic Damon.

When Mr Albarn started work on the new Gorillaz album, his “dark, twisted fantasy,” he gave a vast array of collaborators a specific brief.

“Imagine if Donald Trump won the US presidential elections,” he told them. “How would you feel? What would you do on the night of the result?

“Would you go out and get battered or would you just stay at home watching the news?”

At the time, the former host of the US Apprentice was still the noisy outsider. Yet by last November, when the album was pretty much complete, The Donald was headed for the Oval Office.

Prophetic Damon offers a wry smile when he considers what he set out to achieve with Humanz, the fifth Gorillaz album . . .  suddenly more relevant because of the incumbent with the sandy comb-over.

“I wanted to create an emotional response from men and women to that heightened moment when the world goes mad,” he tells me.

He succeeded because Humanz has emerged from that vision as a magnificent multicultural mash-up that crosses genres and generations with unbridled fervour.

It is a testament to Damon’s knack for working with and getting the best out of other people, a quality present in all his work.

“If I ever do something on my own, I’ll just call it All About Me, featuring Me, produced by Me.”

But to borrow a word often associated with Damon, Humanz sets out to BLUR lines on every track, the cosmopolitan feel aided by recording sessions in London, Paris, Chicago, New York and Jamaica.

The eye-catching line-up of guest vocalists includes three formidable older women — Mavis Staples, Grace Jones and Carly Simon, described by Damon as the project’s “matriarchs”.

There is turbo-charged thought and expression pouring out of rappers such as class act Pusha T, sharp-shooter Vince Staples, avant-garde performer Danny Brown, gender-blurring Zebra Katz and Jamaican sensation Popcaan.

Some of the finest R&B voices on the planet — De La Soul, Anthony Hamilton, Kelela and Benjamin Clementine — put in emphatic shifts, as does house music pioneer Jamie Principle.

Then there is French synth legend Jean-Michel Jarre, one of Damon’s boyhood heroes, popping up on a couple of songs.

Just one song, the despondent Busted And Blue, finds Damon singing on his own.

“That is my moment and I love my moment,” he says. “It’s very special to me.”

And though not seen as “featured artists”, two notable names stand out in the credits.

Blur mucker Graham Coxon adds a splash of guitar to Submission, while Noel Gallagher — once regarded as Damon’s Britpop nemesis — joins in on We Got The Power along with guest star Jehnny Beth from Savages.

Damon’s keen to set the record straight on Noel, a fellow traveller who he counts as a good friend.

Noel’s really bright and I love hanging out with him

“I don’t think it’s surprising he’s on the record. Noel’s really bright and I love hanging out with him,” he says. “Twenty years ago it would have been front-page news.

“We like each other and I respect him as a musician, which is more important. I don’t work with people just because I like them. It was the end of the recording process and I had Jehnny Beth, Noel and, in a corner beside the speaker, was Jean-Michel Jarre.