Strobelite

Album: Humanz (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • A strobe is a device used to produce regular flashes of light. They are used in clubs to give an illusion of slow motion.

    When your private life is dreamin' (when your private)
    You livin' the strobe light (livin' the strobe light
    )

    The vocalist, Chicago R&B funk singer Peven Everett, croons on this song about how 21st century tech obsession and our busy lifestyles has isolated us. Rather than being caught up in our own worlds, we need to slow down, look up, see what's around us and interact with our fellow humans. In other words, we need to live in "the strobe light."
  • Albarn told The Sun regarding the strobe in question: "It was given to me by my dad and he'd had it since he helped do the light show for Pink Floyd at the UFO Club in the Sixties. Almost the first proper rave.
    So I had this strobe and I had my first synthesizer, a Transcendent 2000, and I had my mirror and I used to jam along to 12-inches by people like The Human League."

    "Thank goodness I wasn't epileptic because I was really strobing," he added. "I don't know what it did to my brain. There were no drugs back then, just my strobe light, and I probably hadn't even had a drink by then."
  • The trippy animated video takes place in a London neon-lit night club in which Peven Everett is performing. We see the Gorillaz' 2D and Noodle hit the dance floor while their bandmate Murdoc mingles with some humanz. Several other of the album's collaborators are also sprinkled into the scene, including Vince Staples, De La Soul's Posdnuos and, Savages' Jehnny Beth. The clip was directed by the pseudonymous "Raoul Skinbeck," who apparently is a friend of Murdoc.

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