Gorillaz Album To Feature Snoop, Mos Def, Lou Reed

Not to be outdone by his fellow Blur collaborators, Damon Albarn has released some juicy details about the Gorillaz upcoming album, Plastic Beach.

Gorillaz, the cartoon band project of Albarn and influential Tank Girl's Jamie Hewlett, have just announced a star studded list of collaborators for Plastic Beach — both animated and otherwise. Mos Def, Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed and former Bee Gees member Barry Gibb will all contribute to the album.

British gloom act The Horrors announced earlier in the year they'd recorded a track for the album.

Although the list of contributors will be diverse, Albarn says to expect Plastic Beach to be a pure pop album.

"I did loads of orchestral stuff with the Syrian National Orchestra and managed to get bits of all of them on the record, but essentially I'm trying to make a pop record so it can't be totally orchestral," Albarn told Gigwise.

Albarn has said he'll use the same cartoon characters for the latest version of Gorillaz.

Plastic Beach doesn't have a definite release date yet, and Albarn hasn't named a producer. But we hope he'll choose either Danger Mouse or Dan the Automator, who twiddled the knobs on previous Gorillaz releases.