"Damon Albarn is an icon of music, an artist who remains relevant year after year, like Gorillaz, a group with a solid history and yet current, avant-garde", dissects for AFP Clément Meyère, programmer of the Parisian festival We Love Green, where the band shone in 2022.

Gorillaz's 8th opus, "Cracker Island", still offers hybrid pop but this time sunnier than the previous delivery ("Song Machine: Season One - Strange Timez" in 2020).

As usual, Albarn invites voices for happy interbreeding.

"Oil" is thus served by Stevie Nicks, singer of Fleetwood Mac.

The leader of Gorillaz also invites a regular, Beck, on "Possession Island".

Or, on "Tormenta", Bad Bunny, Puerto Rican rapper recently seen in "Bullet Train", a film with Brad Pitt.

The goal is always the same: to feed Gorillaz, a creature presented in 2001 as a virtual formation, hidden behind visuals and animated clips by Jamie Hewlett, designer of the cult comic strip "Tank Girl".

Decompartmentalization

Even if Albarn's secret, never credited to the first announcements, was quickly exposed.

Yes, the bouncy singer of Blur, one of the leading groups of britpop of the 1990s, was well behind this mysterious entity embodied by avatars, a process that will become a fashion.

What could have turned out to be a smoky concept turned out to be a long-range rocket.

Have embarked in the past stars delighted to slum, Elton John, Jean-Michel Jarre, Grace Jones, etc.

Without forgetting the head researcher of rap Little Simz or MF Doom, mad scientist of hip-hop who has since disappeared.

British singer Damon Albarn (g) in concert with his group Gorillaz, June 15, 2022 in Vienna, Austria © OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE / AFP/Archives

The concerts are stunning, between musicians (including Albarn, pink cap at We Love Green) and singers interacting with the avatars (baptized Murdoc, Noodle, Russel and 2D) on the giant screens that surround them.

"With Gorillaz on stage, we are immersed in a sound and visual universe that decompartmentalizes, creates bridges, there are not many equivalents except Björk", analyzes Clément Meyère.

But in the immediate future, Gorillaz will return to the garage after the Coachella festival in California, while another racing car from Albarn will hit the road again.

Blur, a gang put on hiatus several times since the early 2000s, is reconnecting its guitars for a world tour from Spain to Japan.

Icelandic horn

No reason to fear a purring set listening to previous concerts laid out on discs during previous reformations, such as "All the People" (2009, title taken from the lyrics of the song "Parklife") or "Parklive" (2012, game of words on this same piece).

With Albarn, there is always something happening on stage.

Like in Paris, at La Gaîté Lyrique in 2021, where, for a solo project, he sometimes improvises to surprise the musicians who accompany him.

British singer Damon Albarn of the group Blur, in concert in London, July 2, 2009 © BEN STANSALL / AFP/Archives

He loves being reciprocated.

In Paris, at the Bataclan, in 2019, Tony Allen (who has since disappeared, drummer for Fela Kuti) thus changes the tempo along the way to the delight of an Albarn at the microphone of The Good, The Bad & The Queen, supergroup with Paul Simonon on bass (ex-The Clash).

At the Philharmonie de Paris in 2022, we even saw Albarn blow a long straight horn, a wind instrument from Iceland, his country of heart and source of inspiration for his latest solo album "The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows".

We can expect other versions of the jack-of-all-trades.

He has already surprised with "Mali music", based on exchanges with Malian artists, or the opera "Le Vol du Boli", associated with one of the most famous African directors, the Mauritanian Abderrahmane Sissako ("Timbuktu") .

© 2023 AFP