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Amazon.co.uk Review
You could never accuse Damon Albarn of resting on his laurels. Whether it's forming supergroups (The Good, The Bad & The Queen), working with cult animators (The Gorillaz) or making music with musicians from Mali, the former Blur frontman has nurtured a restless, questing spirit not normally encountered in Britop stars. As if to underline his diverse interests, he now turns his attention to Chinese theatre. Monkey: Journey to the West is a theatrical collaboration between Albarn (music), Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz fame (designs, costumes) and Chinese opera specialist Chen Shi-Zheng. The show itself is an explosive 90-minute circus featuring Chinese acrobats, martial arts experts and contortionists, though the album condenses the experience into 22 songs lasting an hour or so. Recorded in London and Beijing with a mix of European and Chinese musicians, Monkey ... is a genuine attempt at East-West fusion. Featuring a dizzying array of instrumentation--rock guitars, electronics, harps, mandolins, drum machines, strings, plinky-plonk keyboards, giggling girls, chants, even pigs--it's the sort of project that could so easily have gone awry. Yet Albarn, who allegedly mastered the Chinese pentatonic scale, seems to have made it work. Songs like the fluttery "Heavenly Peach Banquet" and the wistful "The Living Sea" are utterly beguiling, and stand in stark contrast to guitar-heavy behemoths like "Battle in Heaven" and the climactic "Monkey Bee." These longer songs are punctuated with incidental pieces such as "Iron Rod", "Into the Eastern Sea" and "Out of the Eastern Sea". While such interludes may distract from a 'normal' album experience, there's enough melodious charm and imaginative whimsy scattered throughout to satisfy even ardent skeptics. --Paul Sullivan
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
What a gem of an album this is!
I haven't seen the show so on the music and music alone, I have to say that there are some genuinely beautiful moments on this album.
As for the so-called 'difficult' pieces, I agree these will not be everyone's cup of tea but I think many people, myself included, see them as curious little moments that demand re-listening to get your head around.
I like music that isn't just ear candy and actually has some substance and Damon has really achieved something here. Something that is totally different (thank God!) from everything else out there at the moment.
I haven't seen the show so on the music and music alone, I have to say that there are some genuinely beautiful moments on this album.
As for the so-called 'difficult' pieces, I agree these will not be everyone's cup of tea but I think many people, myself included, see them as curious little moments that demand re-listening to get your head around.
I like music that isn't just ear candy and actually has some substance and Damon has really achieved something here. Something that is totally different (thank God!) from everything else out there at the moment.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I have been a keen advoate of all things Damon Albarn post-Graham Coxon (i.e., Blur's `Think Tank` and beyond) so was understandably quite excited by the album release of `Monkey, Journey to the West`. I had not seen the Chinese opera-spectacular which this album scores but I didn't let that dissuade me from pre-ordering this one from Amazon. What I hadn't realised was that this 22-song collection largely comprises incidental compositions from the opera and doesn't stand up as an album in its own right. Unless you have seen the opera - in which case this might make a compelling souvenir - I feel duty-bound to warn you not to expect something on the scale of other Albarn side-projects such as Gorillaz' `Demon Days`, `Mali Music` or `The Good, the Bad and the Queen`.
There are handfull of lovely individual songs - particularly the Himalayan Kate Bushisms of `Heavenly Peach Blanket' - but the majority are sonic doodles of varying interest. Predominantly comprising synths and drum machines, fleshed out with guitar, harp and strings, some are diverting enough - even narrational - in their own right, but most score some unseen action intelligable only to those who have seen the production. The effect is sometimes frustratingly akin to being stuck in a theatre foyer ticketless while the action gets underway without you in the audience. And unlike a traditional opera, the music seems rather secondary - or at least only complementary to - the action on stage, rather than the other way around. As a souvenir, it's an attractive package, but I've never been a fan of Jamie Hewlett's artwork - Gorillaz for me was always just about the music.
There are handfull of lovely individual songs - particularly the Himalayan Kate Bushisms of `Heavenly Peach Blanket' - but the majority are sonic doodles of varying interest. Predominantly comprising synths and drum machines, fleshed out with guitar, harp and strings, some are diverting enough - even narrational - in their own right, but most score some unseen action intelligable only to those who have seen the production. The effect is sometimes frustratingly akin to being stuck in a theatre foyer ticketless while the action gets underway without you in the audience. And unlike a traditional opera, the music seems rather secondary - or at least only complementary to - the action on stage, rather than the other way around. As a souvenir, it's an attractive package, but I've never been a fan of Jamie Hewlett's artwork - Gorillaz for me was always just about the music.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Back ground music this is not! This album is full of extraordinary sounds and feelings that are powerful and strange. It is impossible to listen to this as background music, but if you enjoy music for the range of emotions and physical experiences it evokes you will love this album. Yes, there is the trademark Albarn waltz underlying "I love Buddha", and the more westernised tracks tend to be underpinned by thumping Gorillaz baselines, but this album is as strange and different as it should be. There is no English, but Mandarin, many of the instruments are strange, and the melodies are rooted in Chinese folk traditions. You will either find this album wierd and inaccessible, or utterly exhilerating. Deserves to be listened to properly and loudly!!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Interesting and different.
This album could be classed as an experiment in music as pop/rock meets chinese symphonic.
Again Albarn changes musical direction and experiments with a new sound that... Read more
Again Albarn changes musical direction and experiments with a new sound that... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Mr. Ij Bugden
East meets West
Everyone who saw the two-minute animated ident for the BBC's Olympic coverage last year will have a pretty good idea what to expect from this soundtrack to Damon Albarn and Jamie... Read more
Published on 26 May 2009 by Captain Pugwash
Fascinating
Immediate and expressive, with some really beautiful vocal performances. Surprisingly, as the music is quite classical in style, my kids (9 and 5) absolutely love this album and... Read more
Published on 25 April 2009 by Suzabella
Disappointing
I'd been really looking forward to this release, unfortunately I have to say it's the worst of Damon Albarn's career. Read more
Published on 17 Nov 2008 by Alan Jobbins
good but great?
is this any good, yes. would it be any good without damon albarns name on it? yes but surely wouldn't make the light of day on western charts. Read more
Published on 3 Sep 2008 by D. Pearce
A beautiful banquet for the ears
Just received the album this morning, and on the first listen I am taken to a different world of sounds, which spark so many emotions. Read more
Published on 3 Sep 2008 by sininho
could try harder
Well, there is no doubt Monkey at the Royal Opera House was one of the events of summer 08 in London and I went and was certainly entertained. Read more
Published on 2 Sep 2008 by D Major
I Liked the idea.....
When I first heard Albarn and Hewlett were doing this project I was looking forward to the end result so when the album was released got it straight away. Read more
Published on 28 Aug 2008 by Ben Grimm76
STUNNING SHOW - AMAZING MUSIC. OPEN YOUR EARS AND YOUR MIND
I was very lucky to see the spectacle that is Monkey's Journey To The West when it was premiered in Manchester in 2007. It's simply stunning and the music is amazing. Read more
Published on 25 Aug 2008 by SDB MELLONIE
Monkey magic all over again!
I loved the TV series Monkey! - The Complete Series, and because of this I have a good idea of what's going on in the music without having seen the stage opera it comes from. Read more
Published on 24 Aug 2008 by Andromeda Descendent
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