Film Review: Gorillaz: Song Machine Live from Kong
Whether it’s one of their many albums such as Demon Days, Plastic Beach, the more recent Humanz or one of their immensely popular singles spanning the last twenty years including ‘Feel Good Inc.’, ‘On Melancholy Hill’ or ‘Clint Eastwood’, chances are you’ve run into this colossal genre-spanning band more than once. Headed by the Blur front man, Damon Albarn, the group prides itself on its versatile catalogue covering all genres, from punk rock to rap to electronica, aided in part by its multitude of feature artists that appear on essentially every other song, including everyone from Snoop Dogg to Lou Reed to the National Orchestra for Arabic Music.
The band’s music, however, is just one half of a fundamentally multimedia project. The other part revolves around the four animated members of the band, originally designed as a retort to the bland pop-groups that had a firm hold of the world in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. Created by Jamie Hewlett, the only other real, permanent member of Gorillaz, other than Damon, the four animated members of the Gorillaz include Russel, Noodle, Murdoc and 2-D. Along with their own personalities and backstories, Hewlett also creates every music video and the visuals for the live shows.
The Song Machine project, titled Song Machine, Season 1: Strange Timez, was designed specifically to revisit the Gorillaz’ roots, moving away from constructing intricate concept albums and instead focussing on the individual songs, and trying to re-invigorate the creative process. Over the 9 months leading up to the release of the compilation of the songs an ‘episode’ was released roughly once a month featuring a catchy, cute little intro skit and accompanied by a music video created by Hewlett, featuring the animated band members in the midst of their usual hi-jinks, each song featuring unique collaborations from both well-seasoned artists, like Robert Smith, Peter Hook and Elton John to more recent artists, such as Skepta, slowthai and St. Vincent. This new, fast-paced delivery of songs and content display the band’s constant desire to innovate, that is in-part a huge reason for the band’s continuous relevancy and freshness, even as they reach their 20th anniversary this year.
This innovation continues with Song Machine Live, a big budget project that allowed the band to play these new songs live to their vast international audience while battling with ongoing border closures that have been plaguing the world for the past two years. The show was said to be set in the basement of Kong Studios, the studio owned by the animated band who made brief cameos themselves in interludes between, and at moments during the performance. The performance itself was a fantastic display of energy and passion for a new fleet of songs with a total of 10 songs being played from the new album featuring many of the collaborators in person, bringing huge amounts of energy and their own personality to their respective songs. Those who couldn’t make it were present in holographic form to help fill their absence. My favourite from these songs was ‘Momentary Bliss’, which with collaborators slowthai and Slaves, was an absolute blast to experience. However, I really enjoyed the seamless transition from the more melancholic ‘Pink Phantom’ to the groovy, upbeat ‘Opium’. The varied orchestration makes for not a dull moment throughout the whole performance, but this is capped with a humorous but compelling rendition of the Demon Day’s spoken word song; ‘Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head’ fronted by British comedian Matt Berry. After which the set moved away from the entire orchestra to a smaller, cosier set,. iIn which a reduced band set about playing some stripped back versions of some relative ‘deep cuts’ featuring ‘Last Living Souls’, ‘Dracula’, ‘Don’t Get Lost in Heaven’, and ‘Demon Days’. The contrast between the larger, newer and more lively songs with these slower, stripped back, but more complex tunes was a great way to show the bands versatility and their impressive catalogue, even among their lesser-known songs. The show finished back at the main stage with the hugely popular Ed Case/Sweet Irie remix of ‘Clint Eastwood’, with many of the collaborators coming back onstage to feel like a triumphant end to a fantastic performance.
The only criticism I have of the movie is that the hour long pre-show recapping the band’s discography was completely unnecessary, it felt lazy and pandering. For an hour and a half long set, a full hour pre-show felt more like padding for time than ‘bonus content,’ however I did enjoy the interviews with the real life band. The show was concluded by about 5-10 minutes of behind the scenes content that showed the love and care put into every aspect of the performance and a great insight into the scale of operations at Gorillaz.
Another fantastic endeavour from one of the world’s biggest, sort-of non-existent bands, and I can’t wait to see what’s next, with a Song Machine: Season 2 confirmed, and a recent small EP titled Meanwhile, it appears the Gorillaz’ song machine will keep churning on.