Gorillaz Crash a Ritual Sacrifice in 'Silent Running' Music Video

Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett and Nexus Studios' Fx Goby join forces again to direct the new Gorillaz music video for ‘Silent Running ft Adeleye Omotayo’.

Jamie and Fx set out to create a narrative-led creatively ambitious music video for the band, bringing together prosthetics, pyrotechnics, performance and intricate visual effects.  Produced by Nexus Studios, the live-action and animation-infused video’s sense of scale is conveyed through layers of detail large and small, incorporating minuscule carvings on the cave walls, evaporating cult members and the use of real fire on set. 

Originally based at Kong Studios in West London, early last year the group of musical misfits relocated to Silver Lake, California where their new mansion home in the hills proved to be the perfect base from which to recruit new members to join ‘The Last Cult’. Early reports from the Golden State indicated that The Great Leader AKA Murdoc is not only in love with the lady next door, but has a new scent, bottled as his own Divine Essence. Russel is glued to the TV in an effort to salvage some meaning from the static and save humanity, while Noodle is compiling a handbook of wisdom and knowledge. 2D is busy being 2D. With the band in search of the One Truth to fix the world (and Murdoc out to impress his neighbour), they are barrelling towards a prophesized day of reckoning called The Rupture. What this is, and the fate of the band itself, is revealed in the new ‘Silent Running’ video.

Murdoc Niccals of Gorillaz says: “Well, chuffing hell! What an emotional roller-coaster ride that was! I can see the headlines now: “Murdoc’s Bathwater Saves Humanity!” Always the plan tbh, just kept it under my hat until the big finish.”

Fx Goby, director, Nexus Studios, says: "It was a mega-ambitious project, so we had to be mega-creative to get every detail perfect. It was a thrill to capture all of this while exploring each of the Gorillaz members' stories."