Here are some relatively new photos of Damon Albarn, photographed on March 27, 2017 at The Greenwich Hotel in New York. This photo shoot is previously unreleased to the public.
June 30, 2018
New Photos of Damon Albarn
June 26, 2018
Listen to the entire Gorillaz album now!
The Now Now, Gorillaz's new album has been streaming live in its entirety today, following a concert in Tokyo to the fans. Watch it below now!
June 19, 2018
Damon Albarn on Gorillaz's low-key album (featuring Noel Gallagher) The Now Now
So Damon Albarn has finally opened up about his mysterious new Gorillaz album, The Now Now. According to a recent interview, "Unlike so many of their previous releases, the band’s latest, The Now Now (due June 29), is a comparatively intimate affair, minus the usual wide-ranging guest roster — Humanz alone featured Noel Gallagher, De La Soul, Vince Staples, Popcaan, and Grace Jones, among others — and attendant Mt. Everest of studio coordination such a major undertaking involves.
Frontman Damon Albarn, who turned 50 this spring, was happy to swerve into Now‘s simpler, more stripped-down territory, enlisting drop-ins from just a few select friends (Snoop Dogg and 75-year-old jazz-guitar legend George Benson), and production by James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Mumford & Sons, Depeche Mode) and longtime collaborator Remi Kabaka."
Quoting from his latest interview in June 2018, Albarn says:
”This record was really easy to make. I did it in a month with just James Ford and Remi, and finished it at the end of February, which, that’s quite nice, you know?”
The album is mostly sung by Damon Albarn himself, instead of his usual hiding behind the multiple collaborators that made Gorillaz famous.
“So if you don’t like my voice, it’s probably not worth investigating this record. If you do like my voice, I would strongly recommend you buy it. Not that it’s so divisive, but it’s an acquired taste, really.”
“My voice has gotten a lot better,” Albarn said. “A lot richer and deeper, I think. [But] I wouldn’t say I like it. I’m permanently dissatisfied, period, with what I do. I have little glimpses when I’m making something, like, ‘Ahhhh, I love this! This is great!’ And then that moment ends and I just sort of return to, ‘Am I ever really gonna find — I don’t know what it is, but am I ever really gonna find it?’ I don’t know.”
“The record’s all over the place, really,” he says, “but mainly, it’s songs written from the tops of buildings or on buses in America.” One track, “Idaho,” was in fact inspired by a specific trip out West. “We’d just played Red Rocks, so it was on the way from there to Seattle. We spent two days up in the mountains in this very beautiful place, very disconnected — almost like a land that time forgot.
I’ve visited the States a lot, but it’s the first time I actually paused in the great vast wilderness that is America. I couldn’t get enough of it, actually.” Those tracks called “Kansas” and “Hollywood” though? Don’t read too much into them. While he did book a recording session in an appropriately louche hotel penthouse overlooking Sunset Boulevard, “There’s no actual connection,” he says. “Sometimes my original GarageBand [software] titles just stay. I know where the words came from, but not why.”
\
So apart from being inspired by America, what's next for Albarn? Lots, according to him.
“I’ve made two records this year so far,” he says. Well, technically it’s three. Gorillaz, one from the Good, the Bad, & the Queen, and a collaboration with South African artists. “I mean it’s only June,” he says, “and I’ve been in South Africa, I’ve been in Mali, I’ve been all over South America… Mali is fascinating, and I just keep going back there. It has a very strong classical tradition with a lot of complicated music that you have to learn from a very young age.
I struggle with some of it, I really do, but I love that about it. I’m just learning how to become adequate on the balafon, and I ended up having lessons with a 12-year-old prodigy, an absolute genius… I’ll actually be doing something soon in Mali and in Paris about Sundiata, who was a sort of semi-mythical first emperor.”
June 8, 2018
New Gorillaz Track- Sorcererz (Listen Here)
Gorillaz released their 4th album track "Sorcererz" online today, just minutes ago. Take a first look at the song below. Once again, it features a rotating visual illusion of a music video, with a catchy, beaty song.
The album seems like it's going to be awesome, especially with it's synth pop and more focus on 2D's vocals instead of the many collaborations found in Humanz.
June 5, 2018
Gorillaz Not Now Tour Dates 2018
Gorillaz will hit the road this summer with The Now Now Tour playing festival dates across Europe, to include a headline appearance at Boomtown Festival, Hampshire on 11th August.
See the tracklisting for The Now Now here:
1. Humility - feat George Benson
2. Tranz
3. Hollywood - feat Snoop Dogg + Jamie Principle
4. Kansas
5. Sorcererz
6. Idaho
7. Lake Zurich
8. Magic City
9. Fire Flies
10. One Percent
11. Souk Eye
See Gorillaz's The Now Now tour European dates:
1 June Rock IM Ring, Nuremberg - GERMANY
3 June Rock AM Park, Mendig - GERMANY
9 June - Malahide Castle, Dublin - IRELAND
15 June - Sonar, Barcelona - SPAIN
21 June - Messe Arena Hall, Tokyo - JAPAN
5 July - Werchter Festival, Werchter - BELGIUM
6 July - Open’er Festival, Gdynia - POLAND
7 July - Roskilde Festival, Roskilde - DENMARK
11 July - Gurten Festival, Bern - SWITZERLAND
12 July - Lucca Summer Festival, Lucca - ITALY
14 July - Bilbao BBK Live, Bilbao - SPAIN
11 August - Boomtown Festival, Hampshire
June 3, 2018
First Look at New Gorillaz Song- Lake Zurich
New Gorillaz song "Lake Zurich" launched on May 31 2018. The new song is a bit retro, sounding like an 80s song with the constant back beat and the upbeat melody, and features a rotating, dazzling music video featuring a rotating optical illusion with the band members' heads.
The song is catchy and without much vocals, and sounds like something a Daft Punk album would include. In fact, it's better than any Daft Punk song!
Take a look below!
June 1, 2018
Firs Look at Gorillaz's New Song 'Humility'
Gorillaz's new track "Humility" has launched today (May 31st) on Youtube. The song features Damon Albarn's crooning vocals and features very few collaborators. In fact it seems like it's just him on the singing. It's a catchy, "The Fall"-esque track with an upbeat melody and synth sound.
Jack Black also acts as the main star of the video, and it has, as one Youtube comment says, got "summervibes"!
Their video features a sun-drenched new video for first track ‘Humility’ - feat George Benson, starring a roller-skating 2D and a busking Jack Black, was directed by Jamie Hewlett and filmed entirely in Venice Beach, California last month.
The brand new album from Gorillaz 'The Now Now’ drops 29th June & is available to pre-order now. Click HERE.
May 31, 2018
Damon Albarn drops New Gorillaz Song Tomorrow and album in June 29th 2018
Head's up- a new Gorillaz song will be dropping tomorrow and it's going to be fantastic. According to NME, there will be a new album out next month (June 29 2018) so fans won't have to wait long for new tracks to be on the way!
Over the weekend, it was announced that a mysterious website had been launched which led fans to believe that Gorillaz were set to release something in late June. After fans followed a website address found on a series of cryptic posters around London’s All Points East festival, they discovered a site which played a brief clip, showing off band member 2-D playing a guitar, while the words “The Now Now” are flashed on the screen.
Although fans are speculating, the group remained silent on the matter, not confirming whether or not ‘The Now Now’ was the name of a song, album, or something else entirely.
As a source reports, the wife of Gorillaz’ graphic designer Jamie Hewlett, has confirmed the new album, sharing a post on Instagram which shows the artwork, and reveals that fans will only have to wait a month before it drops.
While Jamie Hewlett revealed last year that Gorillaz were planning to release a new album rather quickly to avoid falling into another period of inactivity, the group kept rather quiet about everything until earlier this month, when it was reported that Albarn had left the new album in a London taxi. “It was a disaster,” explained an unnamed source. “Damon oversees everything and, with Gorillaz, it’s not just audio – it’s the expensive visuals as well. The laptop’s contents are priceless.”
Who's excited for the news?
Watch 2 clips of the potential songs Hollywood and Idaho on the new album in which Albarn debuted recently.
May 28, 2018
What Will The New Gorillaz Album Be Like in 2018?
Recently, Damon Albarn reportedly caused a scare after he left a laptop containing a master copy of the new Gorillaz album in the back of a taxi. We're all eager to hear that, but it looks like we won't be hearing any of that anytime soon.
Having previously confirmed plans for a new record in 2018, The Mirror reports that the Blur frontman left the laptop in the back of a taxi after he went drinking at London’s Groucho Club.
“It was a disaster. Damon oversees everything and, with Gorillaz, it’s not just audio – it’s the expensive visuals as well. The laptop’s contents are priceless”, a source told NME. “But after a night at Groucho, Damon accidentally left it in a cab and caused a huge panic.”
The article also claims that the album is strongly inspired by Albarn’s strong anti-Brexit views and will be released next month.
Now, Damon Albarn has been quite politically spoken these few years, with his public condemnation of Donald Trump and Brexit in the months leading up to these events. He has always been one to comment on social life, such as during his Blur days, when he was famous for writing satirical, sarcastic and scarily accurate songs about life- and politics.
Blur's famous "Modern Life Is Rubbish" is a predictor of the current times- people on their headphones, watching TV, advertisements- it's like something out of a Black Mirror, kaftka-esque world. His "Everyday Robots" is a condemnation of technology (or perhaps his lack of tech-skills) but it's really about someone who longs to have a real human connection.
Now, with Gorillaz on the line, what will the new album sound like? Will it be a throwback to the past, where technology is not present? Or will it be even more techno, strange and unusual like their Humanz album?
Who knows- only time will tell.