Hand Signed 'Monkey: Journey To The West' Deluxe Vinyl Box Set LP (12-inch)

£ 43

$ 57

£ 43 Sold For

Jul 15, 2014 Sold Date

Jul 8, 2014 Start Date

18 Number Of Bids

Great Britain Country Of Seller

eBay Auctioned at

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Description

Hand Signed by Damon Albarn (Composer) & Jamie Hewlett (Artist) First edition, 2008 hand-made gold-foiled box includes a super-heavyweight 200-gram vinyl double album pressed on the classic EMI 1400.

Crafted by The Vinyl Factory, the Deluxe Vinyl Box Set also includes an exclusive over-sized Jamie Hewlett art poster and a 68-page booklet featuring original drawings, lyrics and interviews.

Item was Hand Signed by Damon & Jamie at the opening night at London's Royal Opera House on 25th July 2008.

Monkey: Journey to the West is a stage adaptation of the novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en. It was conceived and created by the Chinese actor and director Chen Shi-zheng along with British musician Damon Albarn and British artist Jamie Hewlett.

In 2004, Chinese opera director Chen Shi-zheng approached Jean-Luc Choplin of the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, about staging an opera based on Wu Cheng'en's 16th-century novel Journey to the West. Chen had worked with the writer David Greenspan on an outline dramaturgy, but had not identified a composer for the project. Choplin spoke about the proposal to Alex Poots, director of the Manchester International Festival, who suggested a number of composers he had worked with, as well as the British musician Damon Albarn.

Gorillaz, comprising Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, were around this time involved with the Manchester International Festival in planning a residency under the auspices of the festival at the Manchester Opera House. Albarn was interested in the idea of writing an opera for the festival, and so he and Hewlett met with Poots and Choplin to discuss a collaboration with Chen. Albarn and Hewlett then travelled to China to meet with Chen. Chen took them into the Chinese countryside, where they took photographs and field recordings of folk musicians as a basis from which to develop musical and visual ideas for the production. Albarn and Hewlett returned to the UK and worked separately on its musical and visual aspects. Chen undertook casting auditions in Beijing, assisted at first by Hewlett and David Coulter, who was to be a musical advisor to the project.

Albarn and Coulter assembled a 25-member orchestra featuring traditional Western and Chinese instruments, as well as musical saw, ondes Martenot, glass harmonica and a klaxophone, which features car-horns attached to a musical keyboard, which was purpose-built for the production by artist Gavin Turk. Strings were performed by a string section assembled for Gorillaz live performances. Albarn devised a system for the score based on the Chinese red star. The orchestra was joined by an eight-piece choir provided by Liverpool-based Sense of Sound.

"A collectors item that demands to be kept somewhere safely away from the
harbingers of greasy fingerprints and clumsy hands." Creative Review

"As magical a piece of pop music as you're ever likely to hear." The Guardian

"A satisfying and entertaining phantasmagoria of myth, music and mummery." The Independent

"Instinctive, fascinating and enjoyable." Q

Item is new & unplayed, has been stored in a temperature controlled environment.
Item is from my extensive personal collection that I have gathered over the last 30 years so please check back over the next few months as there will be even more gems to be sold.
Comes from a smoke free & pet free home.
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