Stop The Dams

Aluminum (Ghostigital with Damon Albarn live, 2006, "Stop The Dams" demo)
Stop The Dams

"Well we have this energy policy in Iceland, which is basically drowning the highland, the high plateau of Iceland. It's the biggest preserver of unspoiled nature of Europe. Now they are building power plants, building dams, which will drown a big portion of this land, flooding it. So we had this concert in the beginning of January (2006), with Ghostigital and Bjork and Sigur Ros, Damon Albarn, Damian Rice. And the idea was the protest against this. Being friends with Damon, we decided to do a song together to make it special. That was "Aluminum" and then we changed the title to "Stop The Dams", which is different to what we played live, it's a bit slower. And so he was putting out the new Gorillaz single ( the double A-side combo of "El Mañana" and "Kids With Guns") and said: "We should put this out as the b-side", which we did. All the proceeds go to providing information about this type of activity occurring in Iceland."
- Einar Orn Benediktsson

"Stop The Dams" is the last track released by the band themselves in Phase 2. It's a song done in collaboration with Icelandic duo Ghostigital and was originally written to be a charity single against pollution in the environment of Iceland. However it does something many charity singles don't manage to do, it touches a soul through heartfelt instrumentals and melodies without becoming overly preachy or pompous enough to become a joke. Yes, "Stop The Dams" is a fantastic and breath taking track.

Ghostigital are a fantastic duo of musicians whose mix of electronic and organic instrumentation is a perfect match for Gorillaz. The two members are producer Curver and frontman/fellow instrumentalist Einar Orn Benediktsson. While both are legends in their native land, Einar is considered to be on par with other punk rock legends like Richard Hell, Johnny Rotten and Joe Strummer with his demented, off-key and often "spoken word" vocal style. Einar is respected so much in Iceland, he actually was elected a member of the Reykjavik City Council after running for a campaign with the satirical party, the Best Party. Einar is also a close friend of Damon Albarn's, with the two working on numerous projects together like the soundtrack for the movie "101 Reykjavik" which includes "Bar Beaten", the finished version of a track that started out as a Gorillaz demo, "Gor Beaten". The two have a close enough friendship, that Einar asked Damon to write a song for a benefit concert he was putting on to stop the construction of an aluminum plant in Reykjavik that would have harmed the environment.

The original version of this track seemed to have been figured out on the spot, as the early live version we got seems very improvised with the group of musicians seeming to make up how the song goes as it went along. When Damon premiered the track with Ghostigital and their group of touring musicians it took a much faster, upbeat and almost ska feel then the version the group recorded later. The trumpets come in and out while Damon sings the track in a hopeful falsetto while strumming away on his acoustic guitar over Curver's bouncy drum machine loop. The track went over so well, that Ghostigital asked Damon to record it with them as a potential single the duo could release.

The version the trio recorded was a much slower and more traditional recording that sounds nothing like tracks from either of the two group's output. The instrumental is likely mostly Einar and Curver's work with Damon only providing the main vocals and his acoustic guitar playing. This is because of the track's prevalent use of dreamy synths and organs as well as Einar's triumphant trumpet melody. Damon uses the four common "pop song" chords on this, C G Am and F, which are often used in these kind of powerful downtempo ballads. Unlike most Gorillaz tracks, there isn't a lot of drum work in it, the drums only pop up when the trumpets or organ kicks in. This is a song designed to provoke an emotion out of you, the trio want you to feel something and do something about the problems going on in Reykjavik.

Damon's vocals help drive the track's message even further into the listener's mind. The first verse opens up with: "When you're smoking tenfold in the morning, it's gonna be a cold day. When you're keeping everything inside you, it can only hurt you. Unrelated sounds. The sun will shine again. You hold it in your hands." It's up to you to do something about it, if you're so upset about it, if you're so "cold" and smoking "tenfold" to keep it "inside" you, you're hurting the world around you, therefore only hurting yourself. "You hold it in your hands", it all comes down to what you will do about it. The second verse follows this by saying: "This land is a young land let it stay that way. It's pollution only turns you into something you don't want to see in the water. A reflection of them that you receive. You don't own the sun, and the sun won't shine again. So maybe you're in love with aluminum." Let the place around you stay beautiful or "young". If Damon hasn't convinced you to do something yet he starts to speak on the terms of the selfish, saying that if you don't stop pollution in the water, you will no longer see a "reflection" of yourself in the water but it will be a "reflection" of the bad your kind has done to the water. Cause "you don't own the sun", you won't be able to re create the glow it brought on to the world, but because of all you've done (or haven't done to help) "the sun won't shine again". But hey maybe you just didn't care, maybe you wanted to see the world become broken down, "maybe you're in love with aluminum". Trumpets blaze gloriously through the chorus, it's a beautiful thing to hear.

Einar now takes control of the song's vocals, delivering a classic spoken word section done in only a way he could. The beat quiets down so that we can clearly hear what he has to say, "The cling and a clang, is the metal in my head when I walk. I heart a sort of, this tinging noise, cling clang. The cling clang, so many things happen while walking. The metal in my head clings and clangs as I walk, freaks my balance out. So the natural thought, is just clogged up, totally clogged up. I will need to unplug these dams, and make the natural flow. It sort of freaks me out, we need to unplug these dams. You cannot stop the natural flow of thought, with a cling and a clang." Einar is delivering his vocals from the perspective of someone who was once unaware of the situation. He believed what the corporations told him about the dams they were building, comparing their lies to a clanging metal blocking off his head from the reality of the situation, which is that we need to stop these companies from ruining the world we live in for their own greed. He compares the idea of getting rid of these ideas clogging his brain, with that of unplugging the dams. As he says this, Damon soulfully "oohs" in the background before delivering the ending choruses of both his verses again. The song fades out, leaving the listener to decide what to do next about the situation they presented. Ghostigital decided to change the song's name to "Stop The Dams" after finishing recording the track as they felt it fit the track better given it's new direction.

This wasn't supposed to be a Gorillaz track, it was originally supposed to be a Ghostigital single which featured Damon Albarn. However, Damon asked Ghostigital if he could use it as the b-side to the Gorillaz double single, "El Mañana"/"Kids With Guns" which the duo agreed to. In an alternate life, had Ghostigital released it themselves, I predict the track could have been an underground hit (if not a mainstream one, the song was used in a Google commercial for christ's sake). With the song's heartfelt message and astoundingly breathtaking instrumental, this song could have effected a lot of people, instead it ended up being a b-side which was overlooked by the general public (as most b-sides do), fading into obscurity. I do see why Damon decided to tack this on to the Gorillaz single last minute though. At the time, this was going to be the last thing the cartoon band released as Damon felt the concept had run it's course with Jamie trying to end the project with a movie and a music video for "El Mañana" which effectively killed off the fictional band's guitarist, Noodle. The track would take on a double meaning, not only being an environmental piece but a song that would mark a "farewell" from the project. As a tip of the hat to Ghostigital, the proceeds from the single went to benefit organizations in Iceland who are trying to stop this from happening. "Stop The Dams" marks what was supposed to be the formal ending to the Gorillaz project, as well as a tearjerking message about the environment communicated through stark vocals and soothing instrumentation.