Journey To The West

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Review by James McNair

The latest collaboration between ex-Blur frontman Damon Albarn and comic-book artist Jamie Hewlett is a take on the ancient Chinese folk tale wherein an arrogant monkey king voyages to India to collect the Buddha’s scriptures. Sung in Mandarin, and in part an acknowledgment of China’s ongoing ascendancy as a world player, the record is a challenging but hugely rewarding listen. Look beneath the surface, and there’s also simian logic at play: these two men are, of course, the restless creatives behind Gorillaz, both of them born in 1968 — the year of the monkey.

Recorded in London and Beijing, the record is ostensibly a reboot of the opera of the same name that the duo premiered with director Chen Shi-Zheng in Manchester, England in 2007. The recorded version has more electronic elements, with Albarn reinstating the simple drum machine and synthesiser motifs that were part of his original vision.

We get 22 tracks, most of them bijou, analogue synthesizer and /or traditional Chinese instruments and choir-imbued instrumentals that never outstay their welcome. “The Dragon King” is a stately sounding processional led by a bowed saw, while “Tripitaka’s Curse,” all atonal strings and unsettling ambience, is one of several pieces referencing the darker side of Monkey’s journey towards enlightenment.

The project as a whole involved five lengthy sojourns to China, with Albarn, Hewlett and Shi-Zheng visiting Buddhist monasteries and Albarn researching traditional Chinese folk-music forms. One of the standout tracks is the playful, sweet, female voices-appointed “Heavenly Peach Banquet,” which was recorded in “a proper ‘60’s, Maoist studio.” Like the rest of the album’s compositions, its melody relies solely on the simple pentatonic (five-note) scale that underpins ancient Chinese music.

As with Björk’s Japanese culture-inspired soundtrack for her artist husband Matthew Barney’s film Drawing Restraint 9 “Journey to the West” is half a world away from rock and indie’s more travelled, often more tiresome road.