Gorillaz is an english virtual band created in 1998 by Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur, and Jamie Hewlett. Gorillaz' music has featured collaborations with a wide range of featured artists, with Albarn as the only permanent musical contributor. With Gorillaz, Albarn departed from the distinct Britpop of his band Blur, exploring a variety of musical styles including hip hop, electronic music and world music through an "eccentrically postmodern" approach.

Surely you have met Gorillaz back in 2001 with their singles 'Clint Eastwood' or 'Feel Good Inc', when they began to have worldwide fame.

Gorillaz has presented itself live in a variety of different ways throughout the band's history, such as hiding the touring band from the audience's view in the early years of the project, projecting animated band members on stage via computer graphics and traditional live touring featuring a fully visible live band.

In this article, I am deconstructing the single 'New Gold', which Gorillaz performs in collaboration with Tame Impala (you can find my latest Tame Impala remake here too) and Bootie Brown.

This song was recently released in August 2022 and will be in the Gorillaz's upcoming album 'Cracker Island' which is out in February 2023 and will feature collaborations with Beck, Stevie Nicks, Adeleye Omotayo and Bad Bunny, as well as his tracks with Tame Impala and Thundercat (you can also see my Thundercat remake here! ).

‘New Gold’ is a woozy and wonky electronic track that falls right within Kevin Parker’s established signature style. As the song alternates vocals between Brown and Parker, Gorillaz leader Damon Albarn doesn’t actually appear until the track is already half done. When he does, it’s in a bleary-eyed haze of funky bass and skipping drum beats.

Deconstructing the song has been quite a challenge due to the amount of synthesizers and different sounds that appear, thus achieving that the song has dynamics and does not fall into monotony despite the fact that the entire song is based on 2 looped chords and a guitar and bass loop.

Listen to my remake and in-depth music production tutorial below!

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SYNTHS

A special feature of this remake is that I managed to redo all the synth sounds using only the VST TAL-U-NO, a replica of the legendary Juno-60 synth. Remember that you can download all these presets and sounds through my Patreon page.

The first sound that appears is a pad playing two chords with a sound that I love. As I have commented, I have rebuilt it with the TAL-U-NO with the following configuration. I've automated the modulation parameter to give you that “wave” effect on the tails of the even chords. Listen to it below!

TAL-U-NO Pad 1

In the intro (and several times later during the song) there is also a synth lead with a sharp tone, and you can see how the notes are linked. This effect is achieved with the ‘portamento’ parameter. Listen below to the difference of this same line without using the portamento and then using it, do you hear how the notes are linked?

TAL-U-NO Lead 2 without portamento

TAL-U-NO Lead 2 with portamento

Later on, when the guitar and bass begin to play, a synthesizer appears and it plays the chords again but this time in a more rhythmic way, with another sound that I love. I have run this base sound through Guitar Rig 5 with an Auto-Filter to give it that slight wah-wah touch. Then it takes some reverb and EQ. Listen to this clean sound below, and then with effects to see the difference.

TAL-U-NO Brass 1 without effects

TAL-U-NO Brass 1 with effects

When the previous sound ends, a softer and more ethereal sound appears, making a small 3-note arpeggio, which only appears once in the song. I have recreated it as follows.

TAL-U-NO Keys 3

At the end of this last keyboard, another one appears that will be present in almost all the rest of the song. It is a constant arpeggio with small variations depending on the part we are listening to. Maybe it goes unnoticed in the mix, but it is a very important pillar in the mix of the song. I have deconstructed it with the following parameters. Then listen to a couple of snippets where it appears, in the middle and in the outro of the song.

TAL-U-NO Bridge Arp Synth

TAL-U-NO Outro Arp Synth

Then comes another brass-style synth that plays two notes simultaneously in a rhythmic way and plays with the stereo. The parameters are the following. I've added an auto-pan to move the sound from L to R and a little ping-pong delay. Listen to it here.

TAL-U-NO Brass 2

In the bridge of the song, there is a lead synth cascading down and a couple more notes. I have rebuilt it as follows.

TAL-U-NO Keys 1

Finally, in the bridge and throughout the outro one of the most important sounds appears. It is an upward lead that generates an environment of constant rise and tension. This sound also has the 'portamento' effect that I mentioned earlier, which makes the rise in pitch between notes gradual. In this sound it has been important to fatten it up and make it very expansive to fill the entire stereo. Listen to it below.

TAL-U-NO Lead

As a last special mention, there is a small resource that is repeated throughout the topic. It is an artificial sound that I have also reconstructed with the TAL-U-NO and it sounds as follows. Do you appreciate how it is repeated continuously in the original song?

TAL-U-NO FX sound

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GUITAR

The medium and somewhat distorted guitar with a very characteristic sound of Tame Impala that can be reminiscent of some of their songs like 'Elephant' is a fundamental pillar in this song. It repeats itself constantly from the beginning without getting boring, and provides a solid foundation to the song.

To redo this sound I recorded this guitar line on a Fender Stratocaster and ran it through Guitar Rig 5 with the following setup with an octaver that gives you that fat sound in the first place. Later I added the Decapitator to give it more drive and finally the RC-20 Retro Color to give it distortion and body. The settings are as follows. Listen to the guitar here below.

Guitar sound

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BASS

The bass, like the guitar, is looped throughout the entire song. To record it I have used a Höfner Viola Bass, the same model that Tame Impala uses, and I have put it through the Waves Maserati B72 plugin to compress and equalize it. Listen to it here.

Bass sound

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VOCALS

The voices alternate between Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, Bootie Brown and Damon Albarn. In my previous Tame Impala remake you already read about Kevin Parker's voice production. In this case Kevin's production is very similar, with delays, chorus and reverb playing over the stereo. The chain of effects that I have used is the following, and I have made a couple of sends to a channel with the Waves H-Delay and another with the ValhallaVintageVerb reverb. Listen to this solo voice below.

Kevin Parker vocals

For Damon Albarn's part, in the middle of the song, I've simply added The King Microphone plugin by Waves, which is perfect for giving that vintage radio style voice by filtering out some frequencies. I have also reduced the reverb and delay to this part. Listen to this part of Damon here.

Damon Albarn vocals

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This has been all! I'm quite proud of how this particular remake turned out, so I hope you liked it. Remember to watch my full remake on youtube and you can also support my work through Patreon to keep doing more remakes. Thank you very much guys!

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