…and then “Empire Ants” happens and you understand the entire kooky concept behind the newest Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach. The crux of the album is a typical Albarn vocal cascade, shadowed by an atypical synthesizer and rasping drum loop, but that’s just the first three minutes of the song, because arriving post 2:59 mark is the featured Little Dragon breakdown, in which you glean all the filthy hopefulness of an imaginary island made of trash. Concurrently manufactured and organic, “Empire Ants” is the spacey microcosm of Plastic Beach, which is said to be inspired by the washed-up filth lining English beaches, as well as landfills in Mali.
All the songs on this album seem to be inspired by the ecological paradox of the Earth’s materials being used to destroy the Earth itself, but Albarn and his guest list of performers never get preachy or heavy handed. Musically, Plastic Beach either belongs to the not-so-distant past(synth lines, disco beats, vocoders), or to an impossible future. For every straightforward man-made fruity loop on every track, there is also an organic juxtaposition, such as the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble on “Sweepstakes,” or the brief suite by the National Orchestra For Arabic Music on “White Flag”. This braiding of the robotic with the human is the auditory thesis behind Plastic Beach, and as contrived as that sounds, this is still a Gorillaz album, and there hasn’t been a Gorillaz album yet that you couldn’t dance to.
It will be interesting to see how some of these cuts will stand by themselves, like “Glitter Freeze,” a noticeable low point in the album, as well as “Cloud of Unknowing,” which tried too hard to be soulful and ended up misplaced. Conversely there are a handful of arias on the Plastic Beach opera that are going to be guaranteed radio mainstays, like “Some Kind of Nature,” featuring a deadpan, wildly-sided, Lou Reed, “Superfast Jellyfish,” and maybe “Welcome to Plastic Beach,” which is equipped with the slivering cotton-mouthed tongue of Snoop Dogg. Apart from those select view, the songs off Plastic Beach are going to be to weird for mass consumption, but there’s going to be a night/morning when you will be alone listening to the eeriness of “Rhinestone Eyes,” and something like a sweet Stockholm’s syndrome will consume you.
Maybe you won’t understand what the hell’s going on…
Mp3: Gorillaz – Some Kind of Nature ft. Lou Reed
Mp3: Gorillaz – Empire Ants ft. Little Dragon
