Damon Albarn
Monkey

China! Fascinating land! Cradle of civilization! The Great Wall! Beijing! The Ming Dynasty! Yao Ming! Mao! Hong Kong! Tibet! The best Chinese restaurants in the world! Torture! Censorship!

Ok, the age-old tourist aspect of China is all too familiar to us, but let's not forget that China is also about low-quality industrial production, desolation, annoying marketing, image culture, and an incredible and unbeatable sense of Kitsch; a sense of kitsch celebrated last year by a colorful, playful, megalomaniac, and somewhat superficial theater show: this refers to Monkey, a theatrical adaptation of a traditional Chinese tale set in the sixteenth century, with scenography by Jamie Hewlett (designer of Gorillaz) and music composed by Damon "United Colors of Benetton" Albarn.

Thus, here's this show with a monstrously colorful visual setup, cumbersome costumes, computer graphics, tiresome ballets, and extras hopping around as if they were in High School Musical; in this context of Kitsch, reaching the limits of human tolerance, Albarn's soundtrack fits in well: a titanic mix of Chinese tradition, melodies played on the black keys of the piano, acoustic instruments with a graceless yet so "world" sound, Chinese lyrical singing with cartoon voices... and if these were the only elements, we could still be at ease, but then that evil genius Damon adds to this somewhat stereotyped traditional blend avalanches of the strangest synths, digital percussion, and other electronic gimmicks, perhaps thinking he ended up in Japan ("always slanted eyes, right?").

Essentially, this soundtrack fully accomplishes its task, transforming the traditional Chinese atmosphere into something so skewed, improvised, forcibly modern, and Westernized that all that's missing is to see a slanted-eyed Santa Claus enter the stage inside a giant snow globe with fake snow... The album itself is quite pleasant to listen to, and it's definitely mandatory to view the Monkey Bee video on YouTube, the most successful piece of the work, a melody so typically Chinese, spoiled, or perhaps enhanced by cartoonish voices and a finale dominated by a mighty synth bass that transforms the lullaby into a war chant worthy of a B-series communist propaganda film; surely if I were Chinese I would be a bit sad, but since I'm not, I listen to this album while preparing a dinner with frozen and packaged prawns and spring rolls in Voghera.