Finally, the alternative hip-hop band Gorillaz has returned to bring us more electronic music and graphic art. It has been roughly six years since the man behind the cartoon guitar, Damon Albarn, has released new music that I assume was recorded in a studio. You never really know with them; their last album “The Fall” was recorded on an iPad during a cross country trip around the United States.
Each recently released single has a new video or visualizer showing the Gorillaz’s journey. Each follows the four cartoon gorilla, possibly robotic, band members: 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russ.
So far we have six singles off the upcoming album Humanz: “Saturnz Barz” (feat. Popcaan), “Ascension” (feat. Vince Staples), “Andromeda” (feat. D.R.A.M.), “Let Me Out” (feat. Pusha T & Mavis Staples) and “We Got The Power” (feat. Jehnny Beth). Humanz drops on April 28, and there are already remixes with visualizers for each single.
The album comes after Gorillaz first song release in six years, “Hallelujah Money.” The song features Benjamin Clementine crooning about the end of capitalism and the beginning of the Trump era.
I highly encourage you to watch the video for their anti-Trump track. Infact, I encourage you to watch every Gorillaz music video from “Doncamatic” to “Welcome to the Plastic Beach,” and the acoustic rendition of “On Melancholy Hill” from the BBC 1 lounge. Watch the official music video for that song while you’re at it, too.
The four singles released on March 22 each feature a different member of the band on the album cover. This was a nod to their Demon Days album cover from 2005. With Gorillaz, the music is just a single piece of the larger work of art as a whole.
For example, in two weeks Gorillaz is hosting a live-art piece in Brooklyn, where people walk into the ‘Spirit House’ featured in their new music video for “Saturnz Barz,” according to Pitchfork. Attendants can listen to exclusive music for that event along with new visual pieces. Everything is connected in the Gorillaz universe and I love it.
The video for ‘Saturnz Barz’ is one particularly cool piece of Gorillaz art. Last we had seen of the band’s animated adventures, they were on Plastic Beach fighting off pirates and Bruce Willis.
Now, they roll up to an abandoned house where they decide to crash for the night. However, the house has other plans and torments the band with each member getting their own personal demon to haunt them, from a flying pizza slice to a one-eye giant purple worm. It’s a bad trip for Gorillaz, who live in a perpetual trip. They take a spin around Saturn, but wake up shivering from the cold of the fall off their spirit quest.
Overall I love these new singles. Each one is so varied from the last; with or without the remix, these songs bump in the car, ding in the laury, womp in the whip and all that good ****.
5/5 stars
