Gorillaz trippy short film will be in our sweet hands any minute now
It’s official: Gorillaz’ ninth studio album has dropped, and it comes with something extra – a hand-animated short film that looks as beautifully chaotic as everything else they touch.
The eight-minute film, The Mountain, The Moon Cave and The Sad God, premieres today on the Gorillaz YouTube channel at 4:00 PM GMT (11:00 AM ET / 8:00 AM PT). That’s 3: 00 AM for all of us sad sacks in Aus.
This is not set to be your standard issue music video – expect a full-on visual journey, crafted in traditional “cel” animation with nods to Disney’s Jungle Book and classic Hanna-Barbera.
The plot is pretty surreal – 2-D, Murdoc, Noodle, and Russel climb a mysterious mountain to “make a film” and end up trapped inside it – it doesn’t get more Gorillaz than that.
The film arrives alongside the new album, The Mountain (पर्वत), which finds Damon Albarn blending electronic-pop with Indian instrumentation–sitar, sarod, and tabla–drawing on his travels in India.
The lyrics stretch across five languages: English, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, and Yoruba.
It’s also packed with guest appearances, both posthumous and alive: Dennis Hopper returns for the first time since Demon Days, while Bobby Womack, Tony Allen, and De La Soul’s Dave Jolicoeur appear alongside living collaborators like Black Thought, Anoushka Shankar, Bizarrap, and IDLES.
Written in the wake of personal loss for both Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, this release is being called “spiritually restorative,” bridging the band’s 25-year history with a bold, experimental future.
If you’ve been waiting for Gorillaz to surprise you again, today’s the day – they’ve gone big, strange, and undeniably beautiful.
