The new Gorillaz album, The Mountain, has been out for a week now. You’ll probably know by now that it’s a concept album, of a sort, about death. Amongst the collaborators on the project are many who’ve passed on – Mark E Smith, Tony Allen, Bobby Womack and David Jolicoeur of De La Soul. For those, Albarn used unused material from when they previously guested on Gorillaz records.
Now, the 57-year-old singer-songwriter has admitted for one of those icons – Lou Reed, he had to use a ‘replica’ voice. Speaking to The Needle Drop podcast, Albarn revealed that he ran into problems clearing Reed’s contribution with the Velvet Underground man’s estate.
“Some people, their estates wouldn't allow me,” he explained “On (the track) The Plastic Guru, the voice at the beginning, it's actually a replica of Lou Reed's voice.”
"It was Lou Reed, and then I was told to take it off. So, I didn't want to take what he'd said to me off... Because I thought it was really interesting."
Albarn didn’t explain any further how that ‘replica’ was created, whether it was AI, or even a Lou Reed impersonator (well, why not?)
Not every collaborator from beyond the grave could be used. Terry Hall never made it onto the record because “his tracks have been completely cleaned up because sometimes over the years, I've worked with very efficient engineers who just leave the strip clean and just have the performance on it. Others were not so tidy in their job.”
He said of his work with the material: "I just tried to do it intuitively. Someone like Mark E Smith had loads of stuff left that I hadn't used when we did (The Mountain track) Glitter Freeze.
"And I thought, well, there's enough here for me to try and - you know, his words are so interesting and weirdly so modern-sounding... He was a pretty (good) lyricist, so why waste one word of Mark E Smith?"
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