A Mountain in March
· Gorillaz in India · repeated words · social reckoning ·
I am guilty, in 2026, of being erratic with this newsletter, this gathering of goodness, this exploration of the eclectic. I could offer some worthwhile reasons for this sluggish output, but why, really.
There have been things going on, and other things that have not gone on. Through it all, I have continued to feel the urge to explore ideas and discoveries for this missive, and a fair few remain languishing on the shelf.
But come now, we are here- and so, on we shall go.
🎧 Prefer to listen? Hit play above to hear this week’s dispatch in my mellifluous tones.
Today is about a delightful animated short and its music, which is also accurately described as being about music and its delightful animated short. You’ll see.
The Mountain: A captivating video, an alluring album.
Diacopes: Hello, say hello.
Social reckoning: a turning point for social media?
Speaking of March: Some tidbits from the month, across the decades.
With: Young 40s, creepy glasses, return of the X-files.
1. The Mountain
Late last year, I wrote about an upcoming album from Gorillaz, sliding onto my radar when Anoushka Shankar buzzed gladly about collaborating with the electronic virtual band. That is how I suppose they are referred to, this 25 year ‘experiment’ from English musician Damon Albarn (of Blur) and artist Jamie Hewlett.
‘The Mountain’, influenced by and recorded in various parts of India, released this month. Yet, before I made my way to the album, the mountain came to me.
Gorillaz are known to create animated short videos with their albums- unsurprising, given the band is fronted by four animated characters! The 8minute short film accompanying this album was released a few weeks back, and it is a wonderful, whimsical little jaunt. You are sure to feel like you are in some offshoot of The Jungle Book, and you are meant to.
The 2D animation, awash with hand drawn and painted elements, takes us gently, weirdly, cutely, captivatingly, relaxingly, from forest to river to village to cave to mountain. Noodle, 2-D, Russel and Murdoc- our four Gorillaz- prance, jump, walk, swim and slither their way with animals, flowers, trees, holy men, snake oil salesmen and rapping heads. If it sounds a bit weird, it isn’t.
Ok, ok- it is. But only a bit, only in parts, and almost always endearingly.
“feels like spending almost 9 mins holding hands with an old friend you used to play with every single day when you were kids” _Youtube comment from @levm8715
There is much here that harks to Gorillaz lore from the last 25 years, which I am not familiar with- Noodle’s growth with 2-D and Russel having ‘raised’ her, Murdoc’s oddness and penchant for chaos… These threads combine here with the themes of loss & rebirth that pervade the album itself. If you are willing, you might just feel a hint of the transcendence this motley bunch find at the end.
The film is co-directed by Hewlett with Max Taylor & Timothy McCourt from studio The Line. It took around 18 months to make, and/because it is an unabashed homage to the styles so associated with the 60s and 70s, “a love letter to the golden era of 2D animation”.
Their hat is very obviously and charmingly doffed to The Jungle Book, yes; but we see throughout a concerted effort to be human, with lush hand-painted backgrounds, and the decision to not execute any visuals that weren’t possible in that era.
“In a time of AI overload, this is our love letter to craftsmanship. We’re chasing the feel of pencil on paper. Paint on board. And all the imperfections that come with it.” ^
Beautiful as it is, the film also is a wonderful gateway to the album itself. It features three songs, serving up a sense of the mood and the eclectic flavour that awaits us.
“The hardest thing is to say goodbye to someone you love.”
This is a recurring thought in an album said to be about grief. Albarn and Hewlett visited India twice, shaping their ideas around a new project, but then they both lost their fathers within days of each other. So the second visit became quite different, a ”somber pilgrimage (where) Albarn swam in the Ganges, scattered his father’s ashes into its mythology.” ^
Maybe aptly, departed souls are a part of the album’s “sonic fabric”- it features a fair few contributors who have left us, “enacting a convocation of souls” (I was surprised and delighted to hear Bobby Womack).
Aside- this also feels like an *album*, not a collection of songs, which goes well with my 2026 intent to listen to more albums.
Many months ago, it was the Anoushka Shankar collaboration announcement which made me aware of the album, and its Indian influences. Her sitar sparkles through brilliantly every now & then. There are sarods too, from the Bangash brothers; the nonagenarian Asha Bhonsle makes a stellar appearance; there’s also a wedding band, which is random in a cute way but actually works, doesn’t feel like a gimmick.
And there’s the flute. I can’t say I’ve been a fan of the instrument. Not that I dislike it- no grand view on it really, I just have found the often plaintive nature of the flute… dull. But I will say it has the ability to be emotive.
That happens not seldom in The Mountain.
Having listened to it a few times now it is, arguably not Anoushka or the sarods, but the flute of Ajay Prasanna that is the heart of the album. The flute, and that lovely little melody it introduces somewhere early in the forest, to return many times. A melody that bookends the album, starting with The Mountain and easing us out with The Sad God.
It would be easy to say the melody is an ear worm, but that feels… inadequate. There is something in it that makes it sweep into the ears and under the skin, finding a way to make some sonic-neuro connection, to touch what we all like to imaginatively call the heart.
For an album about grief, The Mountain doesn’t feel sad. Indeed, there are moments which are positively joyous, because I suppose this is also about reinvention and transformation. Yet, there is a certain sense of melancholy that eases in and doesn’t quite leave the music, or leave you. Maybe that’s another reason I’ve been drawn to it.
Watch, listen… I’d love to hear what you think.
“in a world of spoon-fed narratives with second-screen repetition requiring obviousness to the point of utter boredom, thank goodness we get something thought-provoking, strange, open-ended” _Eric Calderon ^
2. Diacopes
I have been sitting on this little literary device for a while. It will be well-known to writers and English teachers, and familiar to readers/ listeners without knowing what it is. I share here for your edification.
A diacope is a rhetorical and stylistic device where a word or phrase is repeated, but with one or more words in between. You see it or hear it often(ish), but you may not know it in prose, ads, scripts, speeches, even everyday talk.
Bond. James Bond.
To be, or not to be.
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
It is used to create some rhythm, or emphasis, or emotional resonance.
The Greek root means “to cut in two,” reflecting how the repeated unit is split by intervening words. That small ‘cut’ intensifies the repeated word, making the line (hopefully) more memorable.
Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.
Run, Forrest, run.
Bol, Radha, Bol.
Easy come, easy go.
* Also, I’m still unsure how it is pronounced. I’ve heard both die-uh-ka-pea, and dye-a-cope.
3. Social Reckoning
I have written here before about social media, the increasing awareness around its perils, and how countries around the world are grappling with it. Lawsuits with the social media companies come and go. Banning it has been the go-to discussion with governments and society, with all the arguments for and against. We have what would appear to be a significant point in this theatre.
Meta & Youtube have just lost a significant case in the US, being found guilty of deliberately designing addictive products and held liable for harmful mental health effects (Snapchat and TikTok quickly settled before trial). The jury also found them guilty of acting with malice, oppression & fraud. The $ fines are barely pocket change, but the implications are larger. The products themselves (not only the content) are judged to be harmful. This opens the door for a potentially stormy couple of years ahead, and not just in the US.
It is being called Big Tech’s ‘tobacco’ moment- a potential turning point, forcing structural product changes which could change the businesses quite significantly.
A report here, legal overview here, and quick look at India-relevance here. You could also look at this very good Insta carousel from a lawyer for a quick, sharp overview, or just to read lines like “The jury said, get out of here you billionaire asparagus”.
4. This Month That Year
A look at March across the years, for no particular reason.
March 8. Psycho, the iconic Hitchcock film, premiered in 1960. It was one of the first to show an unmarried couple in the same bed and, erm, also… a toilet flushing. Yes- the horror of it all! Fun fact: Hitchcock also put in place a “no late admission” policy for the movie (because of the significant death that happens early on).
March 10. Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first speech over a telephone back in 1876. “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you,” he said, calling his assistant in another room. Famously, he wasn’t the only/first to invent the tech, but definitely the first to patent it.
March 19. Apparently this is ‘World Monopoly Day’. Erm, ok, sure? At any rate, toy maker Hasbro recognises this as the official anniversary of one of the most successful board games of all time, which turned 91 this year. The story behind Monopoly is much less clear-cut than a go to jail card. I wrote about it last year, a story of an ignored inventor and irony.
March 30. In 1867, the USA purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, approximately $150-60 million in 2026. It feels like the idea of purchasing entire territories sounds rather quaint now. Even Monopoly-eseque?
Masala Peanuts
(where I share stories or tidbits I find interesting).
“Young 40s.” This is amusing. And random, as ‘trends’ often seem to be in this decade. In South Korea, Gen Z has apparently decided to mock millennials for their style. The term has been around as a marketing description for youthful older consumers, but now it is used to deride those in their forties for “shoehorning their way into styles associated with Gen Z and younger millennials.”
The Truth is Out There. X Files fans? Hulu is officially rebooting the cult series, with Ryan Coogler (Sinners, Black Panther) writing & directing the pilot. No Scully & Mulder (yet); Himesh Patel and Danielle Deadwyler will star as new characters, “Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”
Not for your eyes only. If you thought Meta’s Smart Glasses are a bit creepy, see this. A recent investigation has revealed how the device passes footage it captures to contractors who see all of it, uncensored, for review. This could include people going to the bathroom, getting dressed, having sex.
I suppose wearers could be more careful recording what they are doing, but hey- what about the rest of us caught in their eyeline? “Everyone else just has to hope they’re not being filmed by a stranger.”
Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument.
Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity.
It is self-perpetuating upon itself—a barbarous form of incest.
Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred.
_ THE APOCRYPHA OF MUAD’DIB, from Children of Dune by Frank Herbert
