Film Review

09 January 2009 02:40 BST

Monkey: Journey to the West

XL Recordings, out now .

In a nutshell…

Sumptuous, inventive, delightfully indulgent listening

What's it all about?

Monkey: Journey to the West is an album based on the opera of the same name. The 22-track album describes the journey of the central character, Monkey, as he travels to India in search of the Holy Scriptures, after a run-in with the all-powerful Buddah.

Sung entirely in Mandarin, each of the pieces works as a step in Monkey's journey, portraying the characters and challenges he encounters along the way. It is easy to get a sense of the storyline and characters despite not understanding Mandarin, although English translations are set out in the booklet. Particularly enchanting is the chilling song Whisper, and the comedy aspect comes with the piece Confessions of a Pig. The album is quite pop-happy at times, and this, as well as the popularity of the opera, is definitely one aspect that suggests it will attract a large and varied audience worldwide.

Who's it by?

Chen Shi-Zheng of Dark Matter fame brings together his directorial skills and in-depth knowledge of Chinese theatre to ensure a consistent and enchanting storyline, and this certainly translates onto the way the album unfolds. Damon Albarn utilises his musical genius on the production side of things, and pulls the whole lot together incredibly coherently, with fantastic attention to musical detail. This stretched as far as inventing a new instrument, the Klaxophone, just to get the sounds of car horns on a busy Chinese street exactly right.

As an example...

"Ten thousand pieces of gold cannot buy one beautiful spring night like this/Let's rock the dragon and flip the phoenix." - Monks Song

Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys

The use of the track Monkey Bee for the BBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics may have gone some way towards securing the album's popularity in the national consciousness, and the critics seem pretty happy with the experiments in sound and storytelling too.

What the others say

"The result is often dazzling, as on Heavenly Peach Banquet, a sumptuous cocktail of echoing electronics, harp, fluttering female vocals - as magical a piece of pop music as you're ever likely to hear." - Alexis Petridis, Guardian Film & Music

So is it any good?

Having not read up beforehand on the Chinese fable of Monkey, or seen the on-stage production before listening to the album, I found the incredible composition more than powerful enough to conjure up images of the characters and the richly layered scenes: a powerful reminder that music can really be this intensely visual.

Musically it's fascinating, delightful, interesting – but the album doesn't break boundaries. Yes, the juxtaposition of heavy house beats, recordings of train stations at dawn and traditional Chinese instruments is inventive and the effect uplifting, but Albarn and co don’t really attempt anything too subversive. Ultimately, it is the discourse the music is describing which is more important than self-indulgent experimentation.

Bored of all the Keane-a-likes flooding the music scene? Then whack on a bit of Monkey and shake a fist at the naysayers who lament the death of good music.

8/10

Rebecca Heath

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