Last week, Gorillaz released their project Song Machine: Season One — Strange Timez, which boasted collaborations with artists from Slowthai to Elton John. They’re already working on the next installation in the series, but that’s not all they have on the horizon. Vocalist Damon Albarn revealed that the group has already begun working on a scripted and animated feature-length Gorillaz film.
Speaking to Bryce Segall on Radio.com’s New Arrivals show, Albarn offered a few details about the upcoming project:
“Well, we are supposed to be making a film while we’re doing season two [of ‘Song Machine’]. We signed contracts, we’ve begun scripts and stuff. Making an animated film that’s kind of abstract is quite a big risk for a movie studio because they’re very expensive. If you’re telling a slightly obtuse, weird story that only sometimes makes any sense, it’s quite difficult. That’s what we’ve discovered. But we will do it, we are doing it. I see a lot of people doing animated videos these days but I don’t think they really touch the quality of ours. We’re more in the world of Studio Ghibli.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Albarn reflected on how Gorillaz came to be. The singer said he and designer/animator Jamie Hewlett were watching MTV one night and were disappointed with the programming they saw. So the two penned a manifesto that laid the groundwork for what Gorillaz would eventually become. “It was a late night manifesto, and neither of us could really remember what was on it,” Albarn said. “We can’t find the document. We speculate from time to time.”
New Arrivals with Bryce Segall airs Sundays at 10 p.m. EDT. Listen to it here.
Song Machine: Season One — Strange Timez is out now via Parlophone. Get it here.
Gorillaz are a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.