Plastic Beach

Upon first seeing the cover for Damon Albarn’s third album at the helm of his ever fascinating and groundbreaking band, Gorillaz, I must admit I was immediately captivated.

Plastic Beach’s artwork portrays a remote, yet amazingly intriguing island, with a main outcrop of land that looks suspiciously like the result of a mushroom cloud. Along with the pirate ship harboured on the island and the oddly out of place modern building that sits atop of Plastic Beach, Albarn, along with co –creator and artist Jamie Hewlett, have succeeded in creating a most intriguing world that draws the immediate interest of any onlooker, as well as looking entirely different from anything else normally presented on as an album cover in recent history.

In many respects, this sums up the album well. I believe that, with Plastic Beach, Albarn has finally hit his stride with Gorillaz, producing an amazingly eclectic record full of different experiences and sounds unlike anything else you’ll hear produced by today’s ever-monotonous pop industry. Indeed, due credit must be given to Albarn as he is all over the record, having written, produced, sung and played on all the tracks. It is actually an impressive feat for his work to have overshadowed the obviously famous names called in to assist him on tracks. At first glance it would have been easy to write off the record as one with celebrity cameos thrown in to give added credibility to the songs in a way; Albarn does enlist the help of notorious rapper Snoop Dogg on the wonderful lounge rap track ‘Welcome To Plastic Beach’, as well as the ever popular De La Soul, the malevolent voice of Lou Reed and Clash legends Mick Jones and Paul Simonon.

However, to make such premeditated assessment of Plastic Beach would be a huge mistake to make. From simply reading the track listing it’s clear that Albarn places just as much importance and emphasis in the assistance he gets from the non-famous musical contributions on the record.

The album’s wonderfully mellow yet immersive opener, ‘Orchestral Intro’, features East Midlands based orchestra Sinfonia Viva and immediately creates a feeling of a journey the listener is about to embark upon. Listening to the ‘seagull strewn string intro’ one really does get a sense of embarking upon such a journey to the mysterious island he has created. Despite this, the wailing warning sirens at the climax of such an opener are an indication that this will not an altogether smooth ride.

‘White Flag’ highlights perhaps most effectively such contributions on the record, with the melodic spine of the song being provided by none other than, yes, you guessed it… The National Orchestra for Arabic Music. The surprise appearance from the orchestra delivers the first of many musical contributions that add unique depth to the record as well as making this one of the least predictable and most original records for a long, long time.

The record continues along with the more familiar sounding Gorillaz track ‘Rhinestone Eyes’. Then, just as you begin to ponder the possibility of laziness, Albarn delivers the album’s lead single – ‘Stylo’ – a fantastic track (with an equally fantastic if not better video to boot). The song features the ever underappreciated skills of indie rapper and personal favourite Mos Def combined with the resoundingly powerful soul voice that is Bobby Womack (recently deservingly inducted into the Rock n’ Roll hall of fame). The outcome? Brilliance. With the song perfectly flowing into another album highlight, ‘Superfast Jellyfish’ featuring De La Soul, need I say any more?

The album continues to shine, with the Blur like ballad of ‘Empire Ants’ and the subsequent crooning of rock legend Lou Reed on ‘Some Kind of Nature’, which finds the veteran delivering his lines in typically cranky, fragile fashion. Both Mos Def and Womack appear again with distortion-ridden ‘Sweepstakes’ and the brilliant ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ again powered by Womack’s soulful performance and before you know where you are, the record is coming to an end with ‘Pirate Jet’. Plastic Beach is a very intelligent album in that, underneath all the unusual contributions and melodies, Blur’s old muse does have a message to deliver. However, the way in which he disguises this prevents the listener from feeling lectured at. As Drowned in Sound’s Wendy Robyn commented, “Who better to deliver a lecture on throwaway living than a technicolor cartoon band?”

What is simply staggering about this record is the sheer musical depth and immersion that Albarn manages to create in just under an hour. Plastic Beach may be an altogether scary place to envisage visiting, however, Albarn ensures that the journey is both an enjoyable and mesmerizing experience. All in all, Plastic Beach is a classic that will have listeners eager to see where the animated band of misfits finds themselves next.