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Monkey: Journey To The West
Reviewed
by The Independent, 8 August 2008
 A
series of songs written using the Chinese pentatonic scale
and sung in Mandarin might be considered a hard sell, but
with Jamie Hewlett's animations of Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy
now on TV rotation in trailers for the BBC's Olympics
coverage, Journey to the West appears to be in the process
of becoming a cultural benchmark. Rightly so: there can't
be many multimedia projects that are quite as satisfying
and entertaining as this phantasmagoria of myth, music and
mummery.
Unless my ears deceive me,
there have been changes to Damon Albarn's score between
last June's Manchester premiere and the run at the Royal
Opera House. Recorded over the past year in London and
Beijing, with a phalanx of European and Chinese musicians,
it has a more unified character, the original show's
diverse musical elements harnessed in a more homogeneous
experience, but without sacrificing its variety of musical
colour.
Some of the shorter pieces –
the sleek strings and monkey-chatter of "Iron Rod", the
cycling synths of "Into the Eastern Sea" and "Out of the
Eastern Sea" – are incidental music. The longer tracks are
much more rewarding: "Heavenly Peach Banquet" corrals
glittering harps, strings and toytown keyboard rhythms
into an enchanting slice of delicate Chinese folk-pop,
while "The Living Sea", a wistful blend of Chinese
mandolin, oboe and musical saw, has one of the most
beautiful melodies I've heard this year.
It's not all cute and cuddly.
As the quest progresses into darker realms, so does the
music. "Battle in Heaven" is one of several pieces
recalling the avant-rock of The Residents, while "Tripitaka's
Curse" and "Confessions of a Pig" employ challenging
string arrangements – the atonal squawkings of the former
somehow reaching a swooning conclusion, before Pigsy's
grunted mea culpa is borne along by the latter's seesawing
minimalist lines and madly soaring chorale.
Throughout, there's a subtle
accommodation between Chinese and European traditions, a
gentle tug-o'-war between oriental folk and classical
music modes, European electropop and avant-garde, nowhere
more dramatically than in the marvellous "Monkey Bee",
which builds through Chinese chant-song and glacial
keyboard glissandi to a pounding art-rock climax. There's
more than enough going on here to satisfy the most jaded
of palates.
Pick of the album: 'Heavenly
Peach Banquet', 'The Living Sea', 'Monkey Bee', 'Battle in
Heaven'
(4/5)
Andy Gill
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