The Now Now

The Now Now grapples with subjects such as isolation, fear of loss, aging, rejoining the flow of the world, and inevitably being left behind by it. This is the sixth album from Gorillaz. It released on June 29, 2018 following their album Humanz, which released in 2017.

The album was first teased by the band’s artist Jamie Hewlett on Instagram, showing cartoon drummer Russel with a t-shirt that read “NO MORE UNICORNS ANYMORE.”

This same phrase was spotted on posters which hung from the wall at Britain’s All Points East Festival on May 26, 2018. Each poster was accompanied by a URL that directs to a website, nownow.tv.

On May 31, two singles from the album, “Humility” and “Lake Zurich,” were released along with the album tracklist and cover art.

Much like the case of The Fall, Gorillaz’s 2010 album, the release of The Now Now was more unexpected than the album before it, and Gorillaz musician Damon Albarn is the main driver behind every track.

In a 2017 interview with The Guardian about the release of Humanz (a year before The Now Now), Albarn had this to say about his creative process:

I get my chords and then I improvise the words in one take. It’s a subconscious thing, so I think of my language as somehow connected to the future or the past. Untethered to now.

The Now Now’s album title suggests that Albarn has put more of a conscious effort into his lyrics and that he may be more aligned with the present than ever before.

But more importantly, Ace from The Powerpuff Girls has joined the Gorillaz for The Now Now since Murdoc Niccals, the animated band’s original bassist, is in jail. This is a first for the Gorillaz.