Gorillaz, the pioneering virtual band created by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and Tank Girl artist Jamie Hewlett over 25 years ago, have just announced the release of their ninth album, The Mountain, out March 20 as the first release on their new record label, KONG. Described by Albarn to FLOOD as “part beautiful, part deadly, part futuristic,” a “great fantasy about the afterlife and the Trumpian age,” and political in “my slightly obtuse, slightly abstract, weird way,” The Mountain’s lead single “The Happy Dictator,” featuring legendary experimental art-pop duo Sparks, is out today.
The new single, which was inspired by a trip Albarn took with his daughter to Turkmenistan (“We've established a pattern of going on road trips to very challenging places," he explains, "we started off in North Korea"), is a buoyant poperetta of sorts, with Albarn’s deadpan, transistor-radio raps perfectly complemented, call-and-response-style, by Sparks’s whimsical, sing-songy harmonies. “I was like, ‘This song is just screaming Sparks to me.’ Literally screaming Sparks,” Albarn says of his decision to reach out to the Mael brothers. “They did a brilliant job.”
Other guests on the typically collaboration-heavy The Mountain (which features lyrics in Arabic, English, Hindi, Spanish, and Yoruba) include Johnny Marr, IDLES, The Clash’s Paul Simonon, Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys, Yasiin Bey, Bizarrap, Black Thought, Argentinian rapper Trueno, scholar/civil rights activist Omar Suleiman, National Youth Poet Laureate and songwriter Kara Jackson, Indian-American songwriter Asha Puthli, and Bollywood legend Asha Bhosle. Albarn describes the latter as “one of the biggest stars ever in India; she's recorded something ridiculous, like 7,000 songs. She's incredible, absolutely incredible. She's 92, and she's still completely in the room.”
The Mountain also includes from-the-great-beyond contributions by dearly departed past Gorillaz collaborators like Bobby Womack, De La Soul’s Dave “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicoeur, Dennis Hopper, Mark E. Smith, D12’s Proof, and Tony Allen. “It's so nice hearing them. They feel so present,” Albarn says.
Bhosle, Puthli, Sparks, and many other The Mountain guests joined Gorillaz on September 3 for the final “mystery show” of the band’s four-night residency at London’s Copper Box Arena (part of Gorillaz’s retrospective House of Kong exhibition), playing the album in full. “I was like, ‘I actually can't believe [Bhosle] is flying over to do this concert, that Sparks are flying in,’” marvels Albarn. “Asha Puthli is 80. Ron Mael is 80. I just can’t believe that these people of this age are still this dynamic.” The Mountain’s March 2026 release will coincide with a tour across the UK and Ireland, starting March 21 in Manchester, along with a one-off date at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with openers Sparks and Trueno on June 20. The London gig will be Gorillaz’s first-ever headlining stadium show.
Hewlett’s iconic artwork for The Mountain rebrands Murdoc, Noodle, Russel, and 2D as nomads in India, where much of the album was recorded, eschewing the mainstream music industry to embark on a mountainous spiritual journey; these images will be available as both a book and a collection of 12x12 prints in special editions of The Mountain.
Hewlett has also redesigned and relaunched Gorillaz’s groundbreaking website, Kong Studios. “Now it kind of runs like a computer game, where you can walk around the corridors and interact with everything. It has some of the old favorites still there, but it has new areas that have been built. There’s a cinema to watch films. There’s a gift shop. It’s highly interactive, and it’ll just grow and grow and grow over the next couple of years,” Hewlett tells FLOOD. “We decided that we’re all getting a bit tired of social media, and we wanted to recreate this platform so we could drive our fans off social media to Kong Studios. Everything you need for Gorillaz will be there. That’s something else we’ve been working on this year, as well as the exhibition in London and the live shows and new album. It’s been a really busy couple of years, putting all of this together. So, toward the end of this year and next year, there’s going to be a lot of Gorillaz activity.”
Dates and ticket information for Gorillaz’s spring 2026 tour can be found on their website. The Mountain’s full track list is below. Stay tuned for something special on the horizon with FLOOD and Gorillaz coming this Fall.
1. “The Mountain” (feat. Dennis Hopper, Ajay Prasanna, Anoushka Shankar, Amaan Ali Bangash, and Ayaan Ali Bangash)
2. “The Moon Cave” (feat. Asha Puthli, Bobby Womack, Dave Jolicoeur, Jalen Ngonda, and Black Thought)
3. “The Happy Dictator” (feat. Sparks)
4. “The Hardest Thing” (feat. Tony Allen)
5. “Orange County” (feat. Bizarrap, Kara Jackson, and Anoushka Shankar)
6. “The God of Lying” (feat. IDLES)
7. “The Empty Dream Machine” (feat. Black Thought, Johnny Marr, and Anoushka Shankar)
8. “The Manifesto” (feat. Trueno and Proof)
9. “The Plastic Guru” (feat. Johnny Marr and Anoushka Shankar)
10. “Delirium” (feat. Mark E. Smith)
11. “Damascus” (feat. Omar Souleyman and Yasiin Bey)
12. “The Shadowy Light” (feat. Asha Bhosle, Gruff Rhys, Ajay Prasanna, Amaan Ali Bangash, and Ayaan Ali Bangash)
13. “Casablanca” (feat. Paul Simonon and Johnny Marr)
14. “The Sweet Prince” (feat. Ajay Prasanna, Johnny Marr, and Anoushka Shankar)
15. “The Sad God” (feat. Black Thought, Ajay Prasanna, and Anoushka Shankar)
