BLUR are to release a new studio album on April 27, their first as the original four-piece in 16 years.

Singer and keyboardist Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bass player Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree began recording sessions for The Magic Whip at Avon Studios in Kowloon, Hong Kong, during a five-day break in touring in Spring 2013, after a festival date in Japan was cancelled.

These recordings were put aside when the Britpop graduates with the Colchester roots finished touring and returned to their respective lives, but last November Coxon revisited the tracks. Drafting in Blur’s early producer Stephen Street, he worked with the band on the material; Albarn then added lyrics and the 12 tracks duly resulted.

The full track listing will be: Lonesome Street; New World Towers; Go Out; Ice Cream Man; Thought I Was A Spaceman; I Broadcast; My Terracotta Heart; There Are Too Many Of Us; Ghost Ship; Pyongyang; Ong Ong and Mirror Ball. You can see the video for Go Out, the first track to be lifted off the album, at smarturl.it/61i8sg

The Magic Whip will be available as a digital download, on CD and as a two-disc vinyl set. It forms their eighth studio release in a career that began with Leisure in 1991, followed by Modern Life Is Rubbish in 1993; Parklife, 1994; The Great Escape, 1995; Blur, 1997; 13, 1999, and Think Tank, 2003.

The new album’s gestation has been a clandestine procedure right up to its exclusive Facebook launch at a press conference in London’s Chinatown, as Coxon told the Observer. “It has helped that we have been able to keep it to ourselves to the last minute,” he said. “We had only just mixed it and mastered it and two weeks before that Damon was still doing vocals.

“I was very aware the process was fragile right up until the announcement, and I didn’t want to tempt fate in any way.”

Bassist Alex James has called The Magic Whip a “miracle late baby”, while Coxon reflected on bands returning to the studio after a long hiatus in his Observer interview.

“Lots of groups come back and it doesn’t really set the world alight. Even diehard fans are slightly unenthused. Yet it is a weird idea that simply because you are past a certain age you stop.

“This isn’t the 1950s, the era of the teenager, any more. I always think of the old blues men carrying on making music and having children until they are 80. Pop music doesn’t have to be a fleeting, age-related thing either.”

At the press conference, Blur also announced their return to Hyde Park for a record fifth time.

They will play a headline show in the London park on Saturday, June 20, as part of Barclaycard presents British Summer Time Hyde Park. Tickets details are available at bst-hydepark.com