the MV was beautiful. the line studio captured the dream like melding of life & death that this album and the song moon cave feel like. baby noodle following the footsteps of mowgli was so, soo cute.... i loved it all. more words:
i love it as a way to look back at how far everything's come, and with the theme of the album centered around acceptance of life & death, it meant a lot to me that the focus of the MV was the band just existing together & tying into the interviews of albarn and hewlett in india navigating the losses of loved ones. i'm always going to be immediately partial to talks about death and that's why the album hit so hard for me. this kind of utilization of the characters is what i love best. i'm always thinking about the older interviews where they stressed how cartoons & animations reach a younger audience, and i think a large amount of listeners can agree that their experience with gorillaz was finding it young and growing up with it.
there's talks of lore and what it means that murdoc stayed in the boat but from a more meta perspective i feel that he represents being stuck in old ways (in older phases, preserve noodle as a robot, trap people on an island of never eroding trash, chasing immortality.) while noodle is the future (they tend to ascribe more modern listening tastes to her too. but in starting off in the band as a young kid she had her future shaped the most by it). and there's an eventual acceptance. you can't run away from death. everyone else moves forwards and he can't help but look back. there's parts of murdoc she probably does love but it's at least consistent throughout the band's existence that there are parts all of them really don't love and that's what made her say those words to 2D and russel instead.
the section of moon cave featuring a living and deceased artist, the late dave trugoy the dove from de la soul and the living black thought, accompanied by flowing bouncing manifestations of the past present future everything...its so beautiful. it's almost hard to put into words. music is so powerful man. being able to still collaborate with someone after they died is always going to be a mindfuck to me. asha puthli's singing along the sitar playing is literally like heaven. wttffffff
returning back to this post after watching the making of (someone graciously recorded it) i'm so happy to see things like book binding being a part of the mv too, an artisan book binder who made it for the team, hand painted cels, the gorgeous backgrounds, the mv itself is a celebration of art that's just so wonderful isn't it...
this is the vimeo of the director of the cave sequence, jonathan djob nkondo, and his vision was perfect
i think i need to listen to it front to back to get the cohesive flow that's being talked about right now, i did notice there being no transitions where i assumed one would start to fade into, but i still do like it as a way to put a memorial pin on this part of their life and it is an indulgent album. maybe this works for or against people's opinions but i see that as a main reason it's getting compared to plastic beach. i personally love that aspect of the mountain. anoushka shankar's sitar playing mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn oh man oh man oh man
using this space to react to other people's reactions, i took noodle not facing murdoc and saying i love you to 2D and russel way differently. i also don't think the band is dead and exploded as a concept because they jumped into the river, can't find the interview right now but i did read hewlett talking about gorillaz transforming to better serve whatever thoughts the two want to convey. there's even talks of the next album anyways. yeah the utilization of these characters hasn't been consistent but with this album i feel like it really has been? the notion of how sick this world has become is left to the songs to convey more than the art, that's all. we;re going on year 3 of me mentioning wishing they did use the band to talk about topics like dirty harry but what's been said has been said. and i'll take the time again to be like fuck humanz was such a good album
i'm amazed at the amount of people who were shocked that gorillaz/damon would say something about palestine (they were performing at a fundraising concert too so...) but, i do want the story to be spread of how they played in damascus in 2010, and ppl at the time were expressing how much it means to bring events there where touring musicians did not want to go to. they also performed at a deficit with the intention of bringing a night of levity to people esp the young ones
i read the comments in this performance and get emotional
aw hi thank you for this sweet message!! i am doing okay, i had a tough semester on top of the injury over the summer, so i wasn't motivated much to draw 'rillaz a few months ago, but i feel the obsession floating back in as i wait for the next album. hope you've been good too!
Glad you're hyped for the collabs because the subreddit definitely was not...
can i be honest i really dont pay attention about what the gorillaz, or almost any, subreddit says 😭 subreddits are kind of drama channels to me which, is rich coming from me as i've complained my fair share on here. but i won't judge before i listen and i admit i'm hyped just from the names + seeing their tweets, i just want music and fun collabs! i like hearing people be hyped about recording new music!
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