Another artistic and stirring collaboration between Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett and Emmy-nominated Nexus Studios director Fx Goby (Back to the Moon) has arrived in the new music video for “Silent Running ft. Adeleye Omotayo.” The epic song-story follows the creatives’ recent collaboration on the “Cracker Island ft. Thundercat” MV, the title track for the band’s upcoming new album.
Hewlett and Goby set out to create a narrative-led, creatively ambitious piece, bringing together prosthetics, pyrotechnics, performance and intricate visual effects. Produced by Nexus Studios, the live-action and animation-infused video’s sense of scale is conveyed through layers of large and small details large and small, incorporating minuscule carvings on cave walls, evaporating cult members and the use of real fire on set.
“It was a mega-ambitious project, so we had to be mega-creative to get every detail perfect. It was a thrill to capture all of this while exploring each of the Gorillaz members’ stories,” Goby noted.
In this story world, the Gorillaz last year relocated from Kong Studios in West London to a Silver Lake, Calif. mansion and home based for “The Last Cult.” Here, the Great Leader (a.k.a. Murdoc) has fallen in love with his neighbor and has bottled his scent or Divine Essence. Meanwhile, Russel is caught up trying to discern the answer to saving humanity in the television static, Noodle is compiling a handbook of wisdom and 2D is… busy being 2D.
As the band hunts for the One Truth to fix the world (and Murdoc out to impress the gal next door), they are barreling towards a day of reckoning called The Rupture — the nature of which and the fate of the Gorillaz being revealed in the new video.
“Well, chuffing hell! What an emotional roller-coaster ride that was! I can see the headlines now: ‘Murdoc’s Bathwater Saves Humanity!’ Always the plan TBH, just kept it under my hat until the big finish,” sez Murdoc.
