Gorillaz – The Now Now (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

The Now Now is the upcoming sixth studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz. The album will be released on 29 June 2018 via Parlophone and Warner Bros. Records. Recording began during the North American leg of the Humanz Tour in 2017, with fewer collaborators than usual. According to Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn, the album was recorded quickly so that the band would have more material to play at future concerts. The album was first teased through a series of posters found at All Points East Festival, and was officially announced two days later. The posters contained phrases and a link to a website, which displayed a short teaser containing a snippet of a new song and the release date. Damon Albarn has described the album as “pretty much just me singing” and “very sort of in the world of 2-D”.

Damon is never far away. In 2017 while on tour with the Gorillaz, his imagination was already conceiving The Now Now on GarageBand software under the rooftops of American hotels. The result? Eleven fine-tuned tracks with Jamie Hewlett and his team. Here, Blur’s leader avoids surrounding himself too much. The record Humanz, released a year earlier, was flooded with a good fifteen featuring artists including Pusha T, Benjamine Clemantine and Peven Everett. The Now Now does the opposite. Where Humanz is hip-hop, collective and extroverted, The Now Now is pop, intimate and melancholic (see Fire Flies). This sixth opus has the amplitude of an outdoor, off-screen, out-of-studio design, all the while maintaining a good dose of self-reflection. He now surrounds himself with the crème de la crème (well-beaten but far from being out of date): George Benson (on guitar on Humility), Snoop Dogg and Jamie Principle (in Hollywood). He’s halved the number of his tracks and moved away from crossover genres (funk-dub-reggae-dance) towards a retro-futuristic groove. Albarn confirms, as if that’s even necessary, that he still has a lot to say. – Charlotte Saintoin

Tracklist:

1-1. Gorillaz – Humility (feat. George Benson) (03:17)
1-2. Gorillaz – Tranz (02:42)
1-3. Gorillaz – Hollywood (feat. Snoop Dogg & Jamie Principle) (04:53)
1-4. Gorillaz – Kansas (04:08)
1-5. Gorillaz – Sorcererz (03:00)
1-6. Gorillaz – Idaho (03:42)
1-7. Gorillaz – Lake Zurich (04:13)
1-8. Gorillaz – Magic City (03:59)
1-9. Gorillaz – Fire Flies (03:53)
1-10. Gorillaz – One Percent (02:21)
1-11. Gorillaz – Souk Eye (04:34)