Plastic Beach and Stylo from Gorillaz

The highly anticipated third album from cartoon band Gorillaz is nearly upon us and thanks to the Guardian website and YouTube, we have the unique opportunity to listen to Plastic Beach and watch the official music video to Stylo.

With Plastic Beach, the album features guest performances by Snoop Dogg, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Kano, Bashy, Bobby Womack, Mos Def, Gruff Rhys, De La Soul, Little Dragon, Mark E. Smith, Lou Reed, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, sinfonia ViVA and The Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music. A large collaboration of artists working alongside the pioneers of the band – Blur’s frontman Damon Albarn and co-creator of the comic book Tank Girl, Jamie Hewlett.

After listening to the complete track listing on Guardian Music, I have to say it’s certainly different. Very cool and funky in fact. Best track so far is Empire Ants.

As for the music video Stylo, we follow our hero Murdoc Niccals on a dangerous trip to the mainland from his new home on Plastic Beach. Something goes badly wrong and Murdoc, Cyborg Noodle and 2D end up in a high-speed car chase with a local cop and an unknown assailant (clue: Yippie-kai-yay motherf*****!).

Looking forward to the new album which is out on March 8th.