As he eyes his return with Oasis later in the year, Noel Gallagher has joined forces with two other icons of Manchester music: the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder and Bez, in their supergroup Mantra of the Cosmos.
Gallagher will appear on the group’s new song Domino Bones (Gets Dangerous), released on 19 January. It will only be available on vinyl, and only from Liverpool’s fabled Cavern Club, where the band will play two gigs on the day of release.
Gallagher spoke admiringly of the band, saying they are “like Dylan, Dalí and Ginsberg on a rocketship to the moon to have it with the Clangers”.
The core Mantra of the Cosmos lineup features two other Oasis alumni. Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr, plays drums, having previously drummed for Oasis between 2004 and 2009 including on their albums Don’t Believe the Truth and Dig Out Your Soul. On guitar is Ride’s Andy Bell, who played bass in Oasis between 1999 and 2009, and then joined Liam Gallagher’s post-Oasis band Beady Eye.
Mantra of the Cosmos formed in 2023, and played their first official gig at Glastonbury festival that year. The Guardian’s Gwilym Mumford reviewed it, saying “it sounds like each member is playing in a completely different band at the same time … Which is not to say that watching them isn’t extremely enjoyable.” They have released two singles so far: Gorilla Guerilla and X (Wot You Sayin?).
Gallagher sings the chorus of Domino Bones (Gets Dangerous), which he wrote and then sent to Starkey, who built up the rest of the song’s backing on drums, bass, guitar and keyboards. Ryder sings the song’s verses, and Bell contributes a guitar solo.
Starkey has described the song as sounding like “[Lynyrd Skynyrd’s] Free Bird, for mods”.
“It’s not every day that the greatest songwriter of my generation – not to mention Shaun, the greatest beat poet of our times – sends a tune to me. I was in a daze for a bit cos it’s not something you want to fuck up,” Starkey added. “Noel loves Shaun. He texted me to say, ‘Do you know what you’ve got? The British Bob Dylan’. And he’s not fucking about because now I’ve witnessed what Shaun does. Noel calls him the ‘king of lyrics’.”
The Cavern gigs will be Starkey’s first visit to a venue that was a key part of his father’s history with the Beatles. “There’s a great deal of family heritage at the Cavern aside from the Beatles,” he said. “My parents courted there … who knows, I may have even been conceived there!”
Gallagher also recently collaborated with US blues rockers the Black Keys, co-writing, singing and playing guitar on three songs on their 2024 album Ohio Players. He also worked with Paul Weller on the latter’s 2024 album 66, co-writing the song Jumble Queen.
Since Oasis’s split in 2009, he has focused on his group Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, and repeatedly scotched the notion of an Oasis reunion amid frequent sniping between him and his brother. But in August, the pair reunited to announce the band’s return for a series of stadium tour dates in 2025.
Initially announced for the UK and Ireland – to a feverish response and instant sellout – the tour has since expanded to the Americas and Australia. It kicks off in Cardiff on 4 July.
