Search - Monkey :: Journey to the West

West meets East

Nse Ette | Lagos, Nigeria | 08/29/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Damon Albarn's latest project debuted in the UK album charts at #5 early this week, an amazing feat for a largely instrumental album with the few lyrics there are sung in Mandarin. The BBC used portions of it in programmes highlighting the Beijing Olympics and that helped spur sales.



Apparently the accompanying music to a Chinese musical about a magical monkey, much of the 22 very brief tracks (the album clocks in at about 50 minutes) are interludes which I guess would make more sense if one saw the musical. Having said that, the music is magical and oriental/electronic sounding, and the CD flies past before you realize it.



Standouts include "Monkey's world" with electronic swirls a few spoken works interspersed with synth dance sounds, "The living sea" with a ghostly whistle, delicate guitars and angelic female vocals, "Heavenly peach banquet" with chiming mandolins and female vocals, the dark atmospheric almost hymnal "Whisper" with whispered vocals, "Sandy the river demon" acoustic with male spoken vocals, the beautiful instrumental "March of the volunteers", the horn sprinkled instrumental "The white skeleton demon", the waltz-like instrumental "I love Buddha", and the majestic "March of the iron army" with choir-like vocals.



I've enjoyed every bit of Damon Albarn's musical odyssey, from Blur, through Gorillaz, to The Good, the Bad and the Queen. This is simply beautiful!!"

Full of surprises

Pen Name? | 10/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Being a fan of all things Damon Albarn, there was never a question of whether I would pick up this cd. What surprises me though is how readily accessible I have found it. Sonically, there is a lot going on here, but a lot of the sound of the album and much of the music will not feel all that foreign to one who has been a diehard Gorillaz fan for some time, as quite a bit of the music reminds me of something you might expect to have heard on G-Sides or D-Sides. (This also means that the "From the creators of Gorillaz" sticker tag is not an entirely misleading sell.)

I've been listening to the whole album from start to finish and it is definitely something that adds new quality to my music collection, there isn't anything quite like it that I have heard. It is Eastern, it is opera, it is also pop and rather Westernized... it's basically the perfect sound for the story of Monkey to be translated into the modern world.

The artwork with the disc is also very nice. I'd say anyone who has been tentative about picking this up should just go for it. No matter what your musical background or taste you'll likely find a way to connect with it, and you'll likely be pleasantly surprised by a lot of this peculiar and brilliant album."

Interesting Composition

J. Wong | 10/12/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's certainly inventive. It sounds like a combination of Asian/Scifi/Dance, sometimes all in one song. Which results in some good songs and some that's just noise. I've never seen the production that this is based, though I'd like to. I did grow up knowing about the story of the Journey to the West and also like Gorillaz so I was really interested in hearing this. It takes some time for it to grow on to you and the more I listen to it the more I like it.



However, I still really can't stand "Confessions of a Pig". It sounds like Zhu Bajie (Pigsy) just grunts in beat. At least that's what it sounds like, I can't make out any words. On the flip side, I really like "Monkey Bee". The music resembles "Clint Eastwood" in the middle and the Sun Wu Kong's (Monkey's) words are funny, if a bit repetitive. (He calls Princess Iron Fan cheap for not "lending" him the fan.)



I applaud Damon Albarn for taking this on. Different culture and everything and he managed to get it mostly right. The general feeling of the music fits the general theme for that part of the story really well. However, I'm not sure everyone would like the cd. Some people will think it's a cacophony of noise while others would think it's the greatest thing ever written. For example, I would not have my parents listen to it even if they like the story too. I suppose if you're into into the Gorillaz with some Asian thrown in then it wouldn't be a bad cd to get."