Released on February 27, this new album, critically acclaimed, explores memory and grief through a work haunted by absence. But what does this “mountain” at the heart of the project actually signify?
Twenty-five years after their first album, Gorillaz, the virtual band imagined by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, delivers The Mountain, their ninth album in a discography based on style collisions and unexpected encounters. Designed as a more coherent record than some of its predecessors, it also marks a turning point: a new independent label, new imagination, and a very enthusiastic critical reception.
A collective laboratory since its creation, Gorillaz pushes this logic even further by bringing together living and deceased artists. Dennis Hopper, Bobby Womack, Mark E. Smith, Tony Allen, or Dave Jolicoeur appear from archived recordings of past collaborations. “A way to extend life,” according to Le Monde, transforming the album into a dialogue between different eras of music and the group’s history.
Several specialized press critics directly link this album to the passing of Albarn and Hewlett’s fathers. France Culture speaks of an “album of mourning, of contemplation, with the idea that death may only be a passage.” “If we wanted to approach [this subject] (…), I needed deceased individuals to help me talk about it,” Albarn explains in the official press release that accompanied the album release.
The project is partly born from a trip to India, where Albarn went to scatter his father’s ashes. Traditional instruments, multilingual chants, and spiritual textures permeate the album. “In the West, death is final. Whereas in India, the sadness comes from knowing that we will not see this family member again in this form, but we celebrate the idea that he will start again,” explains Jamie Hewlett.
Difficult to escape: since the album announcement, titles have vied with imagination to welcome Gorillaz “to the top.” A pun too tempting not to be picked up – and, to be honest, not entirely unwarranted, as The Mountain appears as one of the group’s most coherent albums.
But the mountain is not just a single trophy planted. More than a conquest, it resembles a stop after the ascent, a place of transition. A ridge line between two worlds, that of the living and that of the absent. From this height, Gorillaz looks back without getting stuck, transforming grief into a suspended moment where we accept what disappears, to continue moving forward.
