“Monkey King” is the story of a stone monkey, which grows to become one of the strongest creatures on earth. It challenges Buddha in a bid to become the Heaven’s Jade Emperor. The monkey looses the wager and is punished by 500 years of isolation inside the Wu Xing Shan mountain. After being released, Buddha gives the monkey a second chance. He does not waste it and is rewarded by being transformed into “the eternal and perfect state”.

For “Monkey King”, Barry Schrader has split the original story into four scenes, leading the listener from the “Birth of Monkey” to the “Procession of the Immortals”, when monkey becomes a Buddha.. The 37-minute composition is an ambitous piece with many different emotional stages, ranging from tranquil, floating awareness to adrenalin rushes and from warm wood knocks to metallic noises. Barry Schrader has done a remarkable job at perfecting the timbres of the his electronic equipment, approximating the original Chinese instruments, while retaining a certain distance in a bid to create a dreamlike, unreal mood not unlike that of a fairytale.

While “Monkey King” concentrates on the inner complexity of softly moving textures, it also has some catchy and immediate sequencer passages on offer, turning it into what may possibly be Barry Schrader’s most easily accessible score.

There is something timeless about “Monkey King”, which may well turn it into a future classic. This of course coincides with Barry Schrader’s creed of writing music that does not fall out of fashion: “I'm interested in creating fixed musical works with specific ideas and meanings that don't change."

Homepage: Barry Schrader