Officially,
Dr. Dee is
Damon Albarn's first solo album but that's the tiniest misnomer. Ever since
Graham Coxon left
Blur during the recording of
Think Tank,
Albarn has been the unquestioned director of his projects, his authoritative stamp evident on
Think Tank, all three
Gorillaz albums,
Mali Music,
the Good, the Bad & the Queen, and
Rocket Juice & the Moon, so
Dr. Dee doesn't exactly have the shock of the new even though it's certainly willfully odd. An opera -- not a rock opera, or the first opera
Albarn has written, as he has 2007's
Monkey: Journey to the West under his belt --
Dr. Dee concerns itself with the story of John Dee, the 16th century mathematician and occultist who was an advisor to Elizabeth I and is said to be the inspiration for Marlowe's Faustus and Shakespeare's Prospero. Rich material for an opera, in other words, and
Dr. Dee is certainly thick with ideas,
Albarn not running away from his signature tropes so much as using them as a launching pad for a stately, lugubrious collection of minor-key instrumentals, skeletal pop songs, plainsongs, and madrigals. Much of this is intriguing, yet as an album if not a production,
Dr. Dee stays just this side of compelling, always threatening to veer into surprising, dangerous territory yet never quite succumbing to the risk. And that is where
Dr. Dee's roots in the stage show: perhaps it is a bit stuffy and hidebound for art rock, but taken as a theatrical production, it's adventurously cerebral, an album to ponder if not quite embrace.