‘Plastic Beach’ is hardly a distant memory, but word from Gorillaz’ HQ is that the animated super-group are already about to release another album, and that it may hit even as soon as this Christmas. With the new single ‘Doncamatic’ in the charts - but not on the last album - it’s not entirely a surprise to see new content emerging from the band. But the new album’s particular brand of pop rock production music is about to create quite a ruckuss.

‘I’ve made it on an iPad. I fell in love with (it) as soon as I got it’ said Blur-legend Damon Albarn to the NME in a November interview adding ‘I’ve made a completely different kind of record’. Currently on the tour launched by the third album with the entire Gorillaz music library, Albarn has been using the quiet time traveling between world-wide dates to assemble what he hopes will be the first album created on the Apple device. Albarn has described the album as having a more ‘American’ sound, like ‘an English voice that has been put through a vocoder of America’. Kind of like the first time you hear Hugh Laurie speak in House?.

Albarn is also likely to be drawing on content originally created for ‘Carousel’ the album that became ‘Plastic Beach’. It’s also like that the ‘Doncamatic’ will feature. Supporting this, Albarn has previously claimed that he had enough hip hop production music for two whole albums.

So what apps is Albarn likely to be using? Well, you can play synthesised instruments through the device for starters (’Synth’, ‘iELECTRIVE’). There are also multi-track recorders and audio sequencers (’Studiotrack’, ‘Groovemaker’). Then you have full interactive DJ decks (’Mixr’) and all the nobs and sliders you could possibly ever want from a mixing deck with ‘AC-7 Pro’. Of course, the iPad’s limited connectivity possibly makes lugging around your actual recordings a bit of a pain, and nothing can really beat a real studio record, but it’s fascinating to see portable technology advancing so fast!

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