The Magic Whip is the 8th studio album from the group Blur, made up of Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James, and Dave Rowntree. The group are assisted by Mike Smith on horns and Demon Strings for orchestration.
When the group was stranded in Tokyo in May 2013 after a canceled music festival, they worked on new material in order to distract themselves during the downtime. The album was not produced right away. In November 2014, Graham Coxon got permission from Damon Albarn to work on the music with producer Stephen Street. After his tour in Australia in December 2014, Albarn returned to Hong Kong for lyrical inspiration for the previously recorded music. By the end of January 2015, the vocals were completed and the mastering for the album was finished in February.
The cover for the album was inspired by the time they spent in Tokyo when the music was created. The words on the cover literally mean Blur Magic-whip.