Gorillaz unveiled their ninth studio album, The Mountain, on February 27, 2026, featuring collaborations with artists living and deceased. The release coincides with a new short film, The Mountain, the Moon Cave and the Sad God, directed by Jamie Hewlett. Recorded largely during travels in India, the album blends diverse musical influences.
Gorillaz, the virtual band created by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, released The Mountain on February 27, 2026, as a follow-up to their 2023 album Cracker Island. The project draws heavily from Albarn and Hewlett's travels across India, incorporating local musicians and instruments such as bansuri, sitar, sarod, and percussion.
The 15-track album includes posthumous contributions from late collaborators like Dennis Hopper, D12’s Proof, Tony Allen, Bobby Womack, and The Fall’s Mark E. Smith, sourced from the Gorillaz archive. Living artists featured encompass Sparks, Black Thought, Bizarrap, IDLES, Yasiin Bey, Omar Souleyman, Gruff Rhys, Anoushka Shankar, Trueno, and Johnny Marr. Tracks like 'The Mountain' feature spoken words by Dennis Hopper and sitar by Anoushka Shankar, while 'The Moon Cave' includes vocals from Asha Puthli, Bobby Womack, De La Soul's Dave Jolicoeur, Jalen Ngonda, and Black Thought. Production credits list Gorillaz alongside James Ford, Samuel Egglenton, and Remi Kabaka Jr., with mixing by Marta Salogni and mastering by Heba Kadry. Recording occurred at locations including Studio 13 in London and Devon, Island City Studios in Mumbai, and sites in India such as Varanasi and Rishikesh.
Accompanying the album is the short film The Mountain, the Moon Cave and the Sad God, which fuses the tracks 'The Mountain,' 'The Moon Cave,' and 'The Sad God.' The animated clip depicts band characters 2D, Russel, Noodle, and Murdoc journeying through an Indian landscape reminiscent of The Jungle Book, encountering a googly-eyed python and a menacing tiger en route to a mountain view unveiling. Directed by Hewlett with studio the Line, the film took 18 months to produce using hand-painted backgrounds and real materials to evoke 20th-century 2D animation.
In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Hewlett discussed AI in art: “For me personally, I wouldn’t use it in my work. But at the same time, AI, if you’re using it in the art world, is a tool. Just like when Photoshop arrived on the scene. It’s what do you do with it really that matters.” Albarn added, “I think it’s too soon to say whether we can fall in love with it,” comparing it to Mao's view on the French Revolution: “It’s too soon to tell.”
