David Bowie dies following "Courageous 18 month battle with cancer"

According to an official statement the singer-songwriter passed away after suffering from cancer.

“He always did what he wanted to do,” Visconti wrote on Facebook. “And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life – a work of art. He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn’t, however, prepared for it. He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us. For now, it is appropriate to cry.”

“David’s death came as a complete surprise, as did nearly everything else about him,” he explained. “I feel a huge gap now. We knew each other for over 40 years, in a friendship that was always tinged by echoes of Pete and Dud. Over the last few years – with him living in New York and me in London – our connection was by email. We signed off with invented names: some of his were ‘mr showbiz’, ‘milton keynes’, ‘rhoda borrocks’ and ‘the duke of ear’. I received an email from him seven days ago. It was as funny as always, and as surreal, looping through word games and allusions and all the usual stuff we did. It ended with this sentence: ‘Thank you for our good times, brian. they will never rot’. And it was signed ‘Dawn’. I realise now he was saying goodbye.”

Eno also added that the pair had considered working together again, explaining: “About a year ago we started talking about Outside, the last album we worked on together. We both liked that album a lot and felt that it had fallen through the cracks. We talked about revisiting it, taking it somewhere new. I was looking forward to that.”

Listen below now to Noel Gallagher speaking to Absolute Radio about Bowie, plus check out our gallery of David Bowie’s Q covers.