Gorillaz release their ninth studio album The Mountain today, a 15‑track project shaped in part by recording sessions across several Indian cities. Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett worked on the record in Mumbai, New Delhi, Jaipur, Rishikesh and Varanasi after fans pushed them to bring the band’s creative process to India, turning those trips into a key part of the album’s sound and story.
Albarn even scattered some of his late father’s ashes in the Ganga at Varanasi during the making of the record, while Hewlett dealt with a family emergency in Jaipur, adding a layer of personal grief and reflection to the project.
The title track is built around a one‑string violin melody Albarn recorded from a street musician at Jaipur’s Amber Fort, with that single, anonymous performance becoming the backbone of the entire album. Across the full tracklist, The Mountain features performances in English, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish and Yoruba and pulls in collaborators including Johnny Marr, IDLES, Yasiin Bey, Black Thought, Omar Souleyman, Paul Simonon, Sparks and Argentine rapper Trueno.
It also includes posthumous appearances from longtime Gorillaz associates Tony Allen, Bobby Womack, De La Soul’s Dave Jolicoeur, Mark E. Smith and Proof, folding past partnerships into a record that’s explicitly about loss, continuity and moving forward.
Indian musicians are central to the sound: flautist Ajay Prasanna appears on four songs using Dhani and Malkauns ragas, while jazz‑disco legend Asha Puthli rounds out the album’s Indian cast. The result is a multi‑lingual, multi‑city project that blends Gorillaz’s animated, collaborative ethos with field recordings, local instrumentation and a narrative shaped by grief, travel and spiritual detours.
Ahead of release, the band hosted free The Mountain listening parties in cities including Bengaluru and Mumbai, positioning the album as something to be experienced collectively before it hits streaming in full. You can read more about the India sessions and global collaborators in this deep dive into how The Mountain was made
