Doctor Dee - Manchester International Festival 2011 - Review

It's time for a review! Since I have no chance of seeing Doctor Dee live, I will present to you the first proper review, by The Guardian, on Doctor Dee -  Damon Albarn's opera, which premiered last Friday night at the Manchester International Festival 2011.

 4/5 stars

It is perhaps as much a disservice to call the 16th century alchemist and astrologer John Dee a Renaissance man as it is to refer to Damon Albarn as the former frontman of Blur. Neither scratches the surface of their achievements.

Dee was an occultist, hermetic and spiritual advisor to Elizabeth I who appointed the Queen's coronation day through the alignment of the planets.

A world famous scholar who dabbled in the undefined area between science and sorcery, he was reputed to be the model for Marlowe's Dr Faustus and Shakespeare's Prospero. And by applying Euclidean principles to navigation, he laid the visionary blueprint for the British empire.

Now latter-day polymath Albarn has created an opera based on the life of this mysterious philosopher. The pairing seems irresistible: an inscrutable but undeniably beautiful meditation on Englishness inspired by the man who coined the term "Britannia" and written by a musician who made it cool.

Dr Dee is an erudite affair, inspired by the philosopher's exile to Manchester in the 1580s, where he founded the English speaking world's first public library. It's extraordinary to think that whereas Albarn has been bringing himself up to speed with concepts of hermeticism, Euclidian geometry and Rosicrucianism, his erstwhile Britpop rival Liam Gallagher has formed Beady Eye.

Damon Albarn performs on the preview night of the opera 'Dr Dee' at Manchester Palace Theatre. Photograph: Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage

Even so, Dr Dee is by no means an opera in the conventional sense. Instead director Rufus Norris lays on a sumptuous array of scenes and tableaux that draw upon the lavish stage mechanics of an Elizabethan masque. If there's a parallel to be drawn it might be with Berlioz's similarly grandiose "dramatic legend" the Damnation of Faust.

You suspect that the main reason Albarn creates a sound-world combining kora, theorbo, and Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen is because he can. More contentious is his decision to cast himself as a kind of troubadour-narrator, as it slightly negates the dramatic function of Bertie Carvel's Dr Dee, whose role becomes largely mute.

Yet there is genuine dramatic frisson delivered by the ice-cold counter-tenor of Christopher Robson as Edward Kelley, the psychic or "scryer" who became Dee's ultimate undoing.

Dee commissioned Kelley to commune with the angels; the angels apparently suggested that Kelley be allowed to sleep with the Doctor's wife.

Albarn's opera can seem obscure and sometimes wilfully perverse. But it reaches to the heart of the tragedy of an overreaching intellect destroyed by a deal with a second-rate Mephistopheles. Dee was haunted by his shortcomings: "You know I cannot see, nor scry" he lamented.

Yet for Albarn, who ends the evening triumphantly aloft against a panorama of the cosmos, the scry's the limit.

Pretty good review, in fact it's EXCELLENT. Damon's reached a whole new level with his opera performing, and I can't wait for footage of it to surface, or perhaps there'll be a soundtrack album like Monkey Journey to the West. 

You must watch Damon Albarn talk about Doctor Dee in the video below. He discusses his opera (mistakenly named "Dr. John Dee" in The Guardian's website ! ) ahead of it's premier on Friday Night in Machester International Festival. 

Enjoy! And I would like to announce BlurBalls reached a GOOGLE PAGERANK of 3/10. What an achievement! I'm chuffed! All thanks to you guys who link back, tweet and support.

Stay Tuned and remember to subscribe and "LIKE" BlurBalls on Facebook, or email subscribe to receive the latest news on everything Blur, Gorillaz, Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon! 


If you missed old news, visit the NEWS ARCHIVE to read about past news!

The Fall - Gorillaz's road album for those who don't know - Review Part 1

It's another lonely Friday night and I'm in my college dorm. Piles of assignments glare at me from the tops of my shelves. Since I'm in full procrastination mode, and I only have Gorillaz to keep me company, I'm going to present to you my track by track review of Gorillaz's "ipad album" The Fall (Released December 2010). I'll start off by introducing the album and then reviewing the first couple of tunes.

Messy desk, overdue coursework, college dorm

From Montreal to Vancouver via Seattle, Texas and Toronto, over 32 days on their North American Tour this autumn, Gorillaz recorded a musical diary. Recorded on tour, on an iPad, this low-key album (click here to listen to stream for free on the band's website) is the sound of Damon Albarn blowing trees and tweaking apps on his ipad as the American mountains rolls by his tour bus window. 

The result is a collection of 15 tracks, some with vocals, some without, some combined performances and some solo.

The music was recorded during spare time while on the road. "I did it because there's a lot of time that you just spend staring at walls essentially. And it was a fantastic way of doing it" says Damon Albarn. "I found working in the day, whether it's in the hotel or in the venue, it was a brilliant way of keeping myself well." Adding that the collection is "..like a diary, I literally wrote everything on the day in each place and there's a strange sort of sound of America and its musical traditions that comes through. It feels like a journey through America."

A physical release is planned for later in 2011. The full track listing is:

1. Phoner To Arizona
2. Revolving Doors
3. HillBilly Man
4. Detroit
5. Shy-town
6. Little Pink Plastic Bags
7. The Joplin Spider
8. The Parish of Space Dust
9. The Snake In Dallas
10. Amarillo
11. The Speak It Mountains
12. Aspen Forest
13. Bobby In Phoenix
14. California And The Slipping Of The Sun
15. Seattle Yodel

Lets go through what you get with this album, shall we? I will review the first 3 tracks.

Oh, and I've included pictures of how I picture the song when I listen to it. Maybe it'll help you visualize and set the mood... 

1 - Phoner to Arizona

Slightly techno. Reminds me of Stylo, especially the 80s bass beat that runs all the way through the song. No vocals, quite repetitive. It seems like a perfect B-side to any Plastic Beach song, it's pretty much Damon's style. Fades away at the end. Nothing special or spectacular, just a plain old tune that could have been polished.

***

When I listen to Phoner to Arizona, I'm imagining a night out. It's late and everyone's leaving the party, bar, club. You're walking home alone in the cold dark street. Yellow lights from the lamp-post streams down and casts a shadow.

Feel the mood...

2 - Revolving Doors

One of my favourite tracks on The Fall. Damon sings in his drowning croon and repeats "Revolving Doors" over and over again. The song describes him sitting in an American diner and watching the "foggy days" outside his window. He reflects on his life and just sings. The tune is a repeating little tune, quite catchy. Reminds me of Damon's Opera (Monkey Journey to the West) and also the song Hong Kong on Gorillaz's b-sides album D-Sides. 

***

I'm just thinking revolving doors, revolving around and around. Spinning. It's a blur of people in and out. Beatles music on cue. 

3- Hillbilly Man

The song begins with Damon singing about free lanes with a gentle guitar sound in the background. He's talking about driving away and the song's really mellow. Then halfway around 1:25, beats come in. The whole song changes mood. I'm not sure whether it's on purpose or not, but Damon's voice seems to be getting raspier. Rasp is then followed by the chorus, which chants Hillibilly repeatedly. Don't really like the rasp. Didn't Damon quit smoking? 

***

I didn't know what "Hillibilly" was so I did a Google search. Can't stop laughing at the results:

Hillibilly - "Unsophisticated person" - Google Dictionary

That's the end of tonight's The Fall review. I'll continue on next time, please subscribe to the blog or bookmark it! You can always follow the RSS Feed on the sidebar on the right. 

What do you think of The Fall and the songs above? Disagree ?