Gorillaz founder Damon Albarn has performed with the animated characters from the band for the first time ever. The musician was joined by virtual lead vocalist 2-D for a socially responsible duet of their recent track “Aries” over Zoom.
The pair’s performance was streamed as part of Jimmy Kimmel Live, and saw Albarn playing the piano and singing at home, while 2-D joined remotely from the band’s studio – as seen in the video for the slowthai-featuring song, “Momentary Bliss”.
“What you’re about to see is special,” said Kimmel, when introducing the performance. “This is the first time Damon Albarn has ever performed a duet with one of his animated pals. Here now, with a socially distanced performance of “Aries” from the third chapter of the Song Machine series, Gorillaz.”
For the one-off performance, 2-D replaced the track’s original collaborators: Joy Division and New Order singer Peter Hook, and singer songwriter Georgia. Gorillaz have been releasing songs from their Song Machine project since January, which featured artists including Slaves, Tony Allen – who recently passed away – and Skepta.
Watch Albarn and 2-D’s duet below, and get your May horoscope from Gorillaz’s virtual lead guitarist Noodle here.