Gorillaz tease new album with weird digital booklet 'The Book of Noodle'

'Finding a shapeshifter is like looking for a beard at an Arcade Fire concert'

For the last month, Gorillaz social media threads have been filled with nostalgic images from throughout their career, celebrating the virtual band’s four albums.

However, seemingly out of the blue, phase four of the band’s career kicked off with the release of The Book of Noodle, detailing what happened to Noddle after the release of 2010’s Plastic Beach.

According to the book, “days after the attack on Plastic Beach, Noodle awoke in a strange Japanese fishing village” where she was nursed back to health by a pearl diver, soon becoming an apprentice diver.

Unfortunately, on one dive, Noodle managed to wake up an ancient hell demon who was “ready to party like it’s 1499.”

Noodle then embarked on a mission to destroy the shapeshifting demon named Maazu, “but finding a shapeshifter is like looking for a beard at an Arcade Fire concert.” Finally, she tracks it down to Tokyo’s criminal underworld.

While there, Noodle disguised herself as a Geisha in order to get close to Maazu, getting close enough to lop off its head, “his earthly existence over. And the carpet was ruined.”

To escape the demon’s bodyguards, Noodle then FedEx’s herself to West London to fellow band member Murdoc’s house.

Earlier this year, the first footage of Damon Albarn back in the studio emerged online via Jamie Hewlett’s Instagram account, with snippets of new info hitting the internet ever since.

Speaking about album number five previously, Albarn said the new record would be “really fast”, adding “it's got quite a lot of energy.”

In his last update on the upcoming record, Hewlett described how he was 'shutting himself away' to work on the band's next steps. “I’m working on it at the moment, and it’s going very well. I’m very excited. I don’t want to say too much about it, but I’m at that phase of experimentation.”

According to Hewlett, the record will be out in 2017, with the collaborators not wanting to rush the recording process because it’s sound “really f*cking special”.

Gorillaz last release was "Do Ya Thing" in collaboration with James Murphy and Andre 3000.