Gorillaz – The Now Now [Vinyl LP]

Gorillaz – The Now Now [Vinyl LP]

Details

• Format: Vinyl LP, Album, Stereo, Hype sticker
• Catalogue Number: APAR 572304
• Barcode: 190295643423
• Genre: Alternative Rock / Indie Pop / Electronic
• Label: Parlophone / Warner Records
• Released: 29 June 2018
• Condition: New & Sealed

Description

The Now Now is the sixth studio album by Gorillaz — the virtual band created by Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett — and one of the most intimate and unguarded records in their catalogue. Released on 29 June 2018 via Parlophone and Warner Records, it arrived just a year after the dense, guest-saturated Humanz and represented a deliberate and striking correction of course. Where Humanz had featured over 30 collaborators and was conceived as a sprawling, anxiety-laden response to the political moment, The Now Now stripped back to essentials: recorded at Studio 13 in London in a concentrated February 2018 session and produced by James Ford — Simian Mobile Disco's James Ford, who had also co-produced Arctic Monkeys' Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino — the album features only three guest contributors across its entire 11-track runtime.

Albarn has described The Now Now as a "summer record" built largely around his own voice and the fictional consciousness of animated frontman 2D — the blue-haired, dreamy, melancholic singer through whose perspective much of the album is filtered. With Murdoc Niccals (the band's fictional bassist) written as imprisoned during this period and replaced by Ace from Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls, the album's narrative backdrop is one of absence and reinvention — a context that colours its sunlit but quietly mournful mood. The opening track "Humility", featuring jazz guitarist George Benson, became an instant fan favourite: a woozy, looping piece of West Coast-inflected pop that announced the album's unhurried, melodic intentions. "Hollywood" (featuring Snoop Dogg and Jamie Principle) is the record's most immediately accessible track, built on a lush, rolling groove. "Tranz", "Idaho", "Magic City" and the closing "Souk Eye" complete an album that consistently rewards patient, close listening — its hooks arriving obliquely, its emotional weight distributed quietly across the whole.

The album was mastered at Metropolis Studios, London, with demos recorded at a series of hotels during Gorillaz's 2017/18 touring schedule — the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood, the Raphael Hotel in Kansas City, the Knob Hill Inn in Ketchum Idaho, the Marriott in Zurich and the Delano South Beach in Miami. This combination of fixed studio clarity and itinerant demo origins gives the album its particular combination of polish and unguarded informality. The Now Now debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart and received widespread critical praise, with reviewers consistently describing it as the most approachable and human record in the Gorillaz canon.

This pressing on black vinyl is accompanied by a digital download card.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Humility (ft. George Benson)
2. Tranz
3. Hollywood (ft. Snoop Dogg & Jamie Principle)
4. Kansas
5. Sorcererz
6. Idaho

Side B

1. Lake Zurich
2. Magic City
3. Fire Flies
4. One Percent
5. Souk Eye

Credits

• Damon Albarn – Vocals, Instruments, Producer
• James Ford – Producer, Engineer, Mixer
• Jamie Hewlett – Artwork & Visual Concept
• George Benson – Guitar (Humility)
• Snoop Dogg, Jamie Principle – Featured Artists (Hollywood)
• Mastered at Metropolis Studios, London
• Label – Parlophone / Warner Records