Skip to main content

Gorillaz's new AR app is the band’s latest attempt to try all the tech gimmicks

Gorillaz's new AR app is the band’s latest attempt to try all the tech gimmicks

Share this story

gorillaz

Gorillaz, a band in which Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett, and their collaborators are represented by avatars with names like Murdoc Niccals and Noodle, isn’t your average musical two-piece. Their upcoming album Humanz will be out on April 28th, and the band is seemingly trying to hit every tech trend before that day comes.

The album rollout has been punctuated by newish, trendy “experiments” in tech. Gorillaz released new portraits of their avatars in a Facebook photo album, they shared a 360-degree version of the music video for their first single, and they’re hosting a bunch of pop-up “spirit houses” that promise “immersive, high-fidelity” surroundings. The spirit houses are a collaboration with Sonos.

A Sonos collaboration from Gorillaz

To top it off, today the band released an augmented reality app, Pitchfork reports. Users can tour the band’s studio, listen to playlists made by members, and experience some scenes in VR. The app, called Gorillaz, will also play host to a global listening party, in which users will be invited to listen to the new album simultaneously. According to Pitchfork, Gorillaz are calling the event the “largest ever geo-specific listening experience.”

Since the early days of the band, Gorillaz have always dabbled in the mysterious and weird (in 2016, they released an animated comic on Twitter), but with Humanz, they seem to be trying everything at once. And while none of these experiments are exactly changing the music game, at least we still have the album to look forward to.