The world’s greatest cartoon band is back! Gorillaz today announced a March 9 release date for their third album, Plastic Beach, along with some more made-up backstory: Apparently, they’ve “taken up residence, recording on a secret floating island deep in the South Pacific, a Plastic Beach HQ, made up of the detritus, debris and washed up remnants of humanity.†(Kind of like these crazy people!) We also got a full track list, which adds Super Furry Animal’s Gruff Rhys, old friends De La Soul, the Fall’s Mark E. Smith, and Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of the Clash to previously announced guests Lou Reed and Snoop Dogg. And best of all, we got the first single! “Stylo,†now streaming and available for download on the 26th, is a tight piece of funk layered under Bobby Womack’s impassioned love-mongering and some of Mos Def’s finest mumbles. As usual, ringleader Damon Albarn is content to hang in the back, piping in with a few spacey, mild-mannered bars. For the record, this still doesn’t make up for no Blur stateside reunion dates.
Also, check out the the Plastic Beach cover art here.
