Monkey the album – the latest installment in the collaboration between Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett is released this week. As its based on the opera of the same name which directed by Chen Shi-zheng which is in Mandarin, so don’t be expecting Gorillaz MKII. What you do get however is something similiar to that eclectism and melody with moments of ephemeral beauty locked within. With 22 tracks varying from 3 seconds to 6 minutes in length, it’s basically a soundtrack album for what came before it, full of Eastern instruments and voices yet married to a Western pop sensibility. Don’t make the mistake that this is a pop album however. It’s more analogous to an aural work of art.
