All About The Mountain by Gorillaz

The release of The Mountain in early 2026 was a major turning point for Gorillaz, marking a spiritual rebirth and a bold statement of creative independence. 

After years of working with major labels and the collapse of their Netflix film project, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett decided to start their own independent label, KONG. The duo was able to create an album that feels more personal and less like a commercial product. 

At its core, The Mountain is an exploration of the human journey, looking at life, death, and the transition into the unknown.The idea for the album came from a difficult time for both creators, who had lost their fathers during the recording process. Albarn and Hewlett used their grief to create a story that sees death not as an end, but as a transition to something else. 

Hewlett's visual idea for the project is that life is like climbing a mountain; at the bottom, there are many paths, but as you go up, the options get fewer and the air gets thinner, until you reach the top and move on to the afterlife. This sense of moving upward is felt in the music, which changes from rich, earthy sounds to airy, atmospheric ones that feel like reaching a higher level of existence.

To capture this spiritual feeling, the band traveled to India, recording in cities like Mumbai, New Delhi, Rajasthan, and the ancient city of Varanasi. The result is a mix of Gorillaz's art-rock and synth-pop style with the complex sounds of Indian classical music. The album features sitar player Anoushka Shankar and singer Asha Bhosle, which gives the music a timeless, organic feel. 

The record also includes contributions from past collaborators who have passed away, like Bobby Womack and Tony Allen, making the album a connection between the living and the dead. 

The visual part of The Mountain is just as important as the music, and it's centered around the hand-drawn short film The Mountain, The Moon Cave and The Sad God. Jamie Hewlett went back to traditional animation, inspired by the warm, textured look of old Disney films. The film follows the band's characters as they journey through a psychedelic Indian jungle to the mountain peak. 

This return to hand-drawn art feels like a deliberate choice to reject modern computer-generated trends, giving fans a more personal connection to the characters. It's also a consolation for the cancelled Netflix film, showing that the band can tell a compelling story without a big streaming company. 

As Gorillaz starts their 2026 world tour, The Mountain shows that they are still relevant and can evolve with their creators. The album is a project that speaks to people of different languages and generations, inviting listeners to think about their place in the cycle of existence while enjoying some of Albarn's most sophisticated music.

Listen to the full album HERE (Youtube)

Spotify HERE

Gorillaz Reveal Why Their Netflix Show Was Dropped

Here is some not so good news on the Gorillaz Netflix deal. The dream of a full-length Gorillaz cinematic experience has been the "holy grail" for fans of the world’s most famous virtual band. While the characters—2-D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle, and Russel Hobbs—have existed in high-concept music videos and short-form content for over two decades, a cohesive narrative film has remained frustratingly out of reach. 

Gorillaz's Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett had planed for a Gorillaz project at Netflix to begin in 2020, though the idea of a Gorillaz feature film had been a goal for the creators for over 20 years. In 2020, Damon Albarn revealed that the band had a deal with Netflix to produce a feature-length animated movie. This announcement sparked a wave of global excitement, as it seemed the streaming giant's massive budget and penchant for experimental animation would finally provide the perfect home for Jamie Hewlett’s distinct visual style.

In 2021 and 2022, the project appeared to be moving forward. Albarn dropped hints during various interviews, mentioning that script sessions were taking place in Malibu and expressing his enthusiasm for the story they were crafting. For a time, it felt as though the years of "development hell" that had plagued previous film attempts, such as the aborted early-2000s project Celebrity Harvest, were finally over. The Netflix partnership represented a modern era for the band, one where their deep lore and satirical social commentary could be explored with the depth and runtime that a three-minute music video simply could not afford.

However, everything came to a grinding halt in early 2023. The collapse of the project was not due to creative differences between the band and the studio, but rather, Netflix underwent a massive internal restructuring following a period of financial cooling, leading to what many in the industry called an "animation purge." High-profile projects were suddenly cancelled as the platform sought to cut costs and pivot its strategy. For Gorillaz, this meant the loss of their primary advocate within the company.

Albarn and Hewlett eventually made the difficult decision to walk away from the deal. They realized that waiting for Netflix to find a replacement executive and restart the development process would likely result in years of wasted time. 

Speaking in 2025 about their failed Netflix show, Albarn noted that instead of dwelling on the loss, the duo channeled their creative energy back into their primary medium: music. Much of the thematic groundwork and visual world-building intended for the film was repurposed for their 2023 album, Cracker Island, and their more recent 2026 project, The Mountain.

In a new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Hewlett explained why the idea of a movie is no longer appealing, admitting, “If we’d done a movie 25 years ago, fine but the idea of doing a movie now it just doesn’t have no interest in it whatsoever. No interest.”

Albarn also added: "I just felt like I was hanging around for what seemed an eternity,” prompting Hewlett to say, “So we made an album while we were waiting basically".

 While fans may never see the specific feature film that was envisioned during those Malibu writing sessions, the band’s resilience has ensured that the "spirit" of the project lives on through their latest audio-visual releases.