Watch: The freaky “Monkey Bee”
Before we can move onto all that Gorrilaz stuff we must first deal with Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn’s other project, Monkey: Journey to the West; a “circus opera” about a Monkey King searching for enlightenment (yes, the monkey kind). Up until recently, only the select few who had ventured to London’s Royal Opera House had been able to experience the visionary duo’s stage adaptation of the 16th Century Chinese novel. But now, thanks to the power of YouTube, everyone will be all eyes and ears about the outlandish Monkey.
The dubious pair, Hewlett and Albarn, got together recently to create a live-action skit to accompany 
“Monkey Bee”, the first single from the performance’s soundtrack which is now available on iTunes. The video is as odd as the song itself, featuring spliced in kung-fu clips of Chinese warriors battling and out of sync non-English subtitles. The music is freakishly strange, falling somewhere between traditional Chinese folk music and dance beats reminiscent of something you’d find Of Montreal playing at their next show.
With weird science fiction noises circling the background, the battle sequences only become more epic as the Queen (presumably) summons an army from underground and controls the wind to attack the half monkey/half human life form that’s perched on a high mountain ledge nearby. It’s delightfully strange and completely misleading with unhelpful subtitles and a highly confusing plot, but it’s definitely worth the mind fuck. Enjoy!
E.N., if this makes sense to you, would you mind explaining the Chinese subtitles to the rest of us?
I picked up the album a couple of weeks ago and it is some strange stuff. It is definitely more of a soundtrack and it is not nearly as approachable as the Gorillaz albums. That being said, I would love to see the opera and I’m hoping they decide to bring the show stateside at some point.
I had a chance to listen to some of this last month. It needs the visual element to make sense.
Nov 6th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
[...] this about the Damon Albarn discussing the prospects of a Blur reunion? Between the Monkey shenanigans and forthcoming Gorillaz release, it seems almost unfathomable to think the British musician is [...]