Gorillaz/ The Mountain

BY NARENDRA KUSNUR

Gorillaz/ The Mountain

Genre: Synth-pop/ multi-genre

Label: Kong

Record rating: ***

Video rating: *****

The brainchild of English musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, virtual band Gorillaz is known for creating music spanning a variety of genres using mutiplie collaborations by its 'members' Murdoc, Russel, 2D and Noodle. Its latest album The Mountain features a host of Indian artistes like singers Asha Bhosle and Asha Puthli, sitar exponent Anoushka Shankar, sarod brothers Amaan and Ayaan Ali Bangash and flautist Ajay Prasanna. To add to the Indianness, the cover has the word 'Parvat' in Devanagari script.

Though Indian instruments are used on many tracks, only a couple of songs are strong on Indian melody. The opening title track has wonderful bansuri by Ajay and a recording of late actor Dennis Hopper's voice, and 'The Shadowy Light' features Hindi vocals by Asha Bhosle, alternated with English lines by Welsh vocalist Gruff Rhys. 'The Sweet Prince' and 'The Sad God' have some soothing flute passages by Ajay. The rest of the album moves from pop and hip-hop to electronica and Arabic music.

Though it is a concept album themed around death, afterlife and the loss of loved ones, the sound palette is so wide it tends to move in different directions. In terms of quality, it's quite erratic, moving from songs of sheer brilliance to tunes that seem to just fill up space. Maybe 15 songs over an hour and six minutes was a bit much.

There are some gems, no doubt. The album's theme is best described on the numbers 'The Hardest Thing' and 'Orange County'. Used in succession, they both have the line, "You know the hardest thing is to say goodbye to someone you love", with the latter having an addictive whistle.

'The Empty Dream Machine' begins with Anoushka's electric sitar, and features Johnny Marr of the Smiths fame and rapper Black Thought. The line "Listening to Asha sing Dum Maro Dum' is a dedication to the legendary Indian singer.

We have Argentine singer Trueno on the sprightly 'The Manifesto', which has some kind of a Bollywood-meets-Latino vibe, and Syrian singer Omar Souleyman in an exchange with American rapper Yasiin Bey on 'Damascus'. The Asha Bhosle song 'The Shadowy Light' has strong lines by Kausar Munir, like "jahaan sukh ho na dukh ho, jahaan jai ho na haar ho, jahaan pe mil jaaye sachcha dil se pyaar" but it doesn't go with the album's sonic flow, and one needn't have gone in for the high-pitched ending. In fact, much of the album's second half seems quite scattered, and with multiple producers, the cohesion is missing.

The end result is reminiscent of a mountain trek that's smooth at times and jerky at others, with the summit somehow reached after moments of struggle and rough weather. As for the Indian instrumentalists, which also include the brass ensemble Hindu Jea Band of Jaipur and percussionists Viraj Acharya and Bharat Singh, only Ajay Prasanna makes a solid contribution to the overall record. His theme music is simply one of the highlights. The bigger names may add to the hype, but chip in with parts that could have well been played by anybody else.

PS: If the album gets unwieldy, simply check out the video which is a medley of 'The Mountain', 'The Moon Cave' (featuring Asha Puthli, the late Bobby Womack, Black Thought and others) and the record's closing number 'The Sad God', featuring Black Thought. Lots of Ajay flute and a bit of Anoushka's sitar at the beginning and end.

Directed by Jamie Hewlett, Tim McCourt and Max Taylor, with an animation team led by Xavier Ramonede, it's a stunning work of 2D animation. Almost like a nearly nine-minute short film, it's reminiscent of some of the Disney classics. Visual artistry at its most appealing.