THE MOUNTAIN
2025-Present
Unlike most phases, this one didn’t begin with new material; but instead Gorillaz chose to look back on the last 25 years of their career, celebrating their silver anniversary in style. During the peak of the festivities, the band struck while the iron was hot and transitioned directly into their next album cycle.
Firstly, a tribute video titled NOSTALGIAZ was released and a capsule collection of 25 items was launched over multiple waves throughout 2025; Marc Jacob’s Heaven fashion label also released their own range of Gorillaz apparel early in the year. Playlists compiling the band’s greatest hits also dropped as the year progressed. For the 20th anniversary of Demon Days, a new live album was released exclusively on vinyl for Record Store Day.
An immersive exhibition titled House of Kong was set up and ran throughout August. This event consisted of a guided tour through the world of Gorillaz, followed by a mural of 100 collaborators, several official posters, a 15-minute looping montage of documentary footage, a wall display of the storyboards for the Rhinestone Eyes video; all capped off with a display of the original Plastic Beach model. A new wave of merchandise was also made to coincide with the exhibition. It’s set to return in Los Angeles in February 2026.
On the 11th of September, the studio album, The Mountain was announced alongside the single, The Happy Dictator; which released via a brand new record label set up by the band, KONG. As usual, collaborations came in spades as Gorillaz were added to the video game, Fortnite as part of Fortnite Festival: Season 10; a pop-up event was simultaneously held outside House of Kong with free merch, livestreams & DJ sets on select nights. Shortly after this came limited edition bottles of Ballantine’s Finest, as part of their “True Music Icons” range; tote bags were also sold to celebrate the collab.
The Kong Studios website from their early years was also revived around this time; as Gorillaz abandoned conventional social media and began delivering news via the Kong website as the buildings doors gradually opened over time, doling out content including bios on miscellaneous noteworthy people from history, new G Mix playlists & pieces from The Gorillaz Art Book. A new membership pass titled Kong Card was soon launched to give members their own personalised avatars, early access to rooms within Kong, concert tickets & merch drops.
TOURS
Supporting acts: Kid Koala / Maseo / Lady Ruffelin / Sparks / Trueno
Gorillaz took their fans down memory lane by announcing four live shows in London; the first three featuring full performances of their first three studio albums respectively, with stage setups that mimicked the tours of each respective era. These performances saw the live debuts of deeper cuts like Ghost Train, We Are Happy Landfill & Phoner To Arizona. The “Mystery Show” was phone-free event where The Mountain was performed in its entirety; this will be followed by a tour in 2026.
The live band:
- Keyboards: Mike Smith & Ruth O’Mahoney-Brady
- Lead Guitar: Jeff Wootton
- Bass Guitar: Seye Adelekan
- Drums/percussion: Jaega McKenna-Gordon & Karl Vanden Bossche
- Backing vocals: Rebecca Freckleton, Michelle Ndegwa, Jesse Appiah & Angel Williams
- Brass: Chris Storr (Gorillaz/Mystery Show Live), James Copus (Gorillaz/Mystery Show Live) & Matthew Gunner (Mystery Show Live)
- Turntables: Kid Koala (Gorillaz Live)
- Zither: Qing Du (Demon Days Live)
- Bass Clarinet: Ben Castle (Demon Days Live)
- Choirs: Children’s Choir (Demon Days Live) & The London Community Gospel Choir (Demon Days Live)
- Strings: Demon Strings (Demon Days/Plastic Beach/Mystery Show Live) & The London Arab Orchestra (Plastic Beach/Mystery Show Live)
Gorillaz for Beginners 