GORILLAZ RETURN WITH DEMON DAYS

“Every great band is destroyed by their success: cartoon bands are no exception.”

So says Gorillaz guitarist Noodle, who took the helm for new album Demon Days, the follow-up to the band’s multi-million selling debut Gorillaz. “Noodle wrote most of this album herself,” says drummer Russel Hobbs. “Murdoc may try and take the credit for it, but from the basic sketches to the finished album, this was Noodle’s vision.”

Demon Days will be released on 23rd May (11th may Japan, 24th May in the US), and will be preceeded by the single Feel Good Inc, released 9th May.

Co-produced by Gorillaz/Damon Albarn and the Grey Album mastermind Danger Mouse, Demon Days was recorded at the band’s own Kong Studios.

The album is a darker and more intense affair than 2001′s Gorillaz, explains Noodle: “The soul of the recording can’t avoid being a manifestation of the time, climate and location of the place we were in when it was recorded. Consequently the colours are rich, dark and heavy while the rhythms are clean, strategic and relentless. It has a consciousness to it.”

“Like someone has taken the first album and coloured it in,” adds singer 2D.

Gorillaz reputation for excellence and enthusiasm has secured them a stellar guest list. Featured on the album are contributions from De La Soul, Neneh Cherry, Martina Topley-Bird, Roots Manuva, MF Doom, Ike Turner, Bootie Brown of the Pharcyde, Shaun Ryder, Dennis Hopper, the London Community Gospel Choir and the San Fernandez Youth Chorus.

The full tracklisting is as follows:

1. Intro
2. Last Living Souls
3. Kids With Guns
4. O Green World
5. Dirty Harry
6. Feel Good Inc.
7. El Mañana
8. Every Planet We Reach Is Dead
9. November Has Come
10. All Alone
11. White Light
12. DARE
13. Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey’s Head
14. Don’t Get Lost In Heaven
15. Demon Days

The band is currently shooting a promo for Feel Good Inc. with image consultant Jamie Hewlett, starring the track’s guest performers De La Soul alongside Gorillaz.

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It’s official. Gorillaz have completed recording their brand new album. The very first outing for the forthcoming album is said to be happening at this years’ South by South West festival in the USA.

Murdoc is rumoured to be taking the album over in person. He said, “I’m hand-delivering this precious baby myself.

One slip up and these 15 tracks of gold will be splashed all over the internet faster than you can say ‘bring forward the release date’” We’ll keep you posted on all the latest news on the album release as soon as we have it.

Gorillaz

While Blur may be on temporary hiatus, drummer Dave Rowntree has been working hard directing a new animated series ‘Empire Sq.’ and spoke exclusively to Xfm about his new creations, life as Blur’s drummer and why it’d be “fantastic” to have a Blur World Exclusive to report.

The series ‘Empire Sq.’ plays on the theory that if ‘video nasties’ could launch the popularity of VCR’s and sites with, ahem, questionable content could popularise the Internet, then an animation series of dubious tastes could become a hit on state of the art mobile phones.

“The animations are designed to work on TV, the Internet and mobile phones, so that’s why the characters are very pixelly with very sharp colours,” Rowntree explains. “We decided the more we pushed the boundaries of taste the better. We began working on a show aimed at kids, but the more we worked on it, the more we realised the taste police scrutinise everything and you get very little freedom.”

“So we started on an adult series addressing topics that really got under our skin. The three main characters react to a world they don’t understand, but they exploit it to get what they want from it.”

He also explained that while he may be up to his eyeballs in digital animations, he never really gives up the day job.

“I never stop playing the drums to be honest,” he insists. “Just because I’m not on the road with Blur doesn’t mean I stop playing, that would be insane. Like stopping breathing. I’ve had two or three parallel careers for about twenty years now, but I’m finally realising there’re only so many hours in the day. So while I’m a megalomaniac in some respects, for the series my role is strictly as director.”

Dave was also dying to give Xfm Online an exclusive insight into the current goings on in the Blur camp, but seemed to suddenly lose the power of speech.

“It would be wonderful if I could exclusively reveal what we were up to at the moment, wouldn’t it? Yeah that would be fantastic”

Curses.

For more information on Empire Sq. go to www.empiresq.com or tune in to Channel 4 as Empire Sq takes over the 4Music zone for a 12 week run. Episodes will be shown from 11:30pm. For information on how to get the series sent directly to your mobile, check out the website.

Xfm

Graham Coxon releases his first DVD on 28 March 2005.

The DVD recorded live at the Zodiac in Oxford, features the former Blur guitarist running through the best of his solo material to date including all the hits from the critically acclaimed album Happiness In Magazines.

Pre-order it now from Amazon.co.uk.

Q’s March issue incorrectly names the title of the album as “We are Happy Landfill” but informs us of various song titles: Dirty Harry; Feel Good Inc.; One Red Herring; White Light.

The article quotes 2D describing the album as: “It sounds like someone has taken the first record and coloured it in”.

NME however gave the correct title for the album on Feb 19 as “Demon Days” with May release date expected.

NME also confirm that the album is being heavily played in the office stereo, stating that “Gorillaz fulfil all the promise of their debut” and that film star Dennis Hopper is amongst the album’s guests.

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