Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett are the innovators and, dare I say it, geniuses behind the animated satirical anti-band Gorillaz. But while that is their best-known collaboration, with the band having two hugely successful albums, and worldwide fame, both are also famous for other things.
Albarn is of course the former lead singer of Blur, one of the two biggest Britpop bands, alongside Oasis. It may be telling that while Oasis are still going, Blur split long ago, and Albarn has moved on to many other projects. One of which, The Good, The Bad and The Queen, are still going strong.
Jamie Hewlett meanwhile is the co-creator of the legendary comic book, Tank Girl. While Albarn handles all of the music, Hewlett handles the artwork, and has won awards for it. He has also created the opening credits sequence for the BBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics.
The last time we saw the pair, they had collaborated on Monkey: Journey To The West, an operatic reworking of an old Chinese tale, which has played in Manchester and is coming to the Royal Opera House in London this week. And now they have announced their next project.
Jamie Hewlett gave an interview to the Observer newspaper, and as well as talking about his career to date, from Tank Girl, to Gorillaz and beyond, he also gave the first initial details about the new project, which is currently titled Carousel. He said:
[It] is even bigger and more difficult than Monkey, and it isn’t going to fit anywhere and no one’s going to like it, ha ha ha! We’ve started work - I’ve done a lot of visuals and Damon’s done a lot of music but we haven’t figured out how they’re going to fit together.
I can’t say much about it yet but it’s sort of like a film, but not with one narrative story. There’s many stories, told around a bigger story, set to music, and done in live action, animation, all different styles.
Originally it was a film but now we think it’s a film and it’s a stage thing as well and … look, it’s basically us doing what the fuck we want without worrying about whether it’s for a record company or a film company or whatever. So I’m not sure how it’ll pan out, or even if it will happen. But Damon’s written around 70 songs for it, and I’ve got great plans for the visuals, but right now, at this moment, it’s still just a really good idea.
Albarn and Hewlett are becoming the golden duo, with everything they touch turning into an unprecedented success. The fact that Albarn has written 70 songs for this new project also shows how much music is in his blood. Now all we need is for him to reform Blur, and then I’d be ecstatically happy.
[Photo Source: thetripwire at Flickr]
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