Alburn hits all the right notes, albeit some out of tune
Release date: 23 September 2008
By Jerilyn Covert
There’s an old Chinese saying: Dream different dreams while on the same bed. Loosely interpreted, it means, you should give Damon Albarn’s newest project, Monkey, a listen. Possibly from the same bed you sat on when you listened to Blur and The Gorillaz. That’s because the apparent simian-obsessed artist has dared to try something really different: scoring an elaborate Chinese opera-circus. And the effort more than paid off. With the help of fellow Gorillaz cohort Jamie Hewlett and Chinese opera specialist Chen Shi-Zheng, Albarn composed the music for Monkey: Journey to the West, a classic Chinese tale dating back to the 1700s that tells the story of a little monkey who could transform himself into various creatures to overcome life’s obstacles. The album ranges from soft, Eastern meditation to out-of-tune chaos to militant booming to otherworldly enchantment. It’s the sort of surprising thing that saves music lovers from the tearful boredom that accompanies way too many of the major album releases these days.