music you've been enjoying lately

shudder

Well-known member
I first heard gamelan music in a class called, rather portentiously, "Orientalism and Primitivism in Western Music". Love love loved it at first hearing, but then never really explored it. Thanks for the link, Zhao.
 

turtles

in the sea
Yeah really enjoying that gamelan disk, zhao. But "Kecak (Chanting)"!! Just mind-melting. I'm perfectly sober in the middle of the work day and I was just struck dumb in mesmerized awe for the entirety of that track. Quite shocking, really, almost don't know what to think of it.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Yeah really enjoying that gamelan disk, zhao. But "Kecak (Chanting)"!! Just mind-melting. I'm perfectly sober in the middle of the work day and I was just struck dumb in mesmerized awe for the entirety of that track. Quite shocking, really, almost don't know what to think of it.
 

bnek

Well-known member
cheers zhao. i know nothing about gamelan, but i sure like the sounds. i have this one this one which is good too:
51Z6S881RQL._SS500_.jpg
 

bnek

Well-known member

baraka vs dopplereffekt:

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Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Cheers for the gamelan zhao, its fantastic stuff.

I work as a classroom assistant in a secondary school, and we've been doing gamelan with the year sevens. Its great because you can have all the kids involved playing different things according to their abilities (can become a bloody racket at times though, but they love it!).

Don't they refer to the gamelan as like a tree, with the low instruments as the trunk, the next layer as the branches, with the busier melodies as the leaves? I like that idea...
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
a tree, with the low instruments as the trunk, the next layer as the branches, with the busier melodies as the leaves

nice. i was told that some of the larger bass gongs should be struck only once every performance.

and the largest one in the temple, only once a year.

I'm sure the exact moment when it is struck coincides with their calender of seasonal cycles, holy days and such...

it's very interesting in Gamelan the individual players melt into a whole, the band of up to 30 or 40 players moving as one, behaving like a school of fish, or a flock of birds... all of them changing direction (and tempo) at the same time --- psychic connection. absolutely wicked to witness live. chills down the spine.

a very different construction of subjectivity and the self than the western individual:

gamelan_gong_gede.jpg


and after 30 minutes of jamming, the audience is lost in a trance... and the dancers enter. fucking hair raising.

usually a group of girls first:

IndBalidance.jpg


and for some shows, after quite a long time, this demon enters the stage:

Ind_dance_s.jpeg


one show i saw, i didn't notice the demon who was standing in a doorway doing his freaky dance for a long time... and all of a sudden i see him and literally jumped out of my seat.

it's really sad that all the true masters from the past generation have passed away. and that even thought the knowledge remains, their kind of mastery is forever gone. not many young indonesians are interested in Gamelan, and it is only foreigners, Germans, Chinese, Koreans, in indonesia that try to preserve and study the tradtion...

more pictures:

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Gamelan.jpg
gamelan_1.JPG
Indbarongmask.jpg
kapitan2.jpg
mask.jpg
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mask-indonesia-general-drawing-2.jpg
 

zhao

there are no accidents
do you live in UK benny? I'm sure there are some gamelan shows that happen there, if not often, at least a few times a year? might want to ask around, I'm sure the Indonesian embassy (?) knows of them.

the shows in LA i attended were of the Cal Arts ensembles, which are led by respected Indo musicians. they are never advertised, and only people who know show up.

i suspect it's similar in other cities.... but worth while to track down. one of the most awesome live music experiences ever...
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Yeah I'm from the North East. Will definitely keep my eyes peeled, they have a fair bit of world music on at the Sage in Gateshead, so that might be a possibility...
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
do you live in UK benny? I'm sure there are some gamelan shows that happen there, if not often, at least a few times a year? might want to ask around, I'm sure the Indonesian embassy (?) knows of them.

the shows in LA i attended were of the Cal Arts ensembles, which are led by respected Indo musicians. they are never advertised, and only people who know show up.

i suspect it's similar in other cities.... but worth while to track down. one of the most awesome live music experiences ever...

i can't believe i'd never heard this stuff before...this is a kind of live show i know i could actually enjoy

thnx zhao :D
 

zhao

there are no accidents
i can't believe i'd never heard this stuff before...this is a kind of live show i know i could actually enjoy

and any show in the west would pale in comparison to the days (up to 7 i think) long gamelan festival/party/ceremonies i have heard about. talk about immersive. total trance, waking dreams... the audience dances, sings, laughs, cries. not sure if they happen with any frequency any longer.

crazy island people...

and I'll try to dig up some Indonesian guitar music. like John Fahey meets Hawaii Slack Keys meets classic minimalism :D
 

leamas

Well-known member
The Gamelan stuff is great. Nice call Zhao. My only problem with it is feeling that I need to undertake some serious study to give it its dues.

Also been checking:

Electronic:

Daniel Meteo
Technasia
Early Stewart Walker (Stabiles, Live Extracts)
Thorsten Fenslau
Mono Junk (Kimmo Ripatti) - verges on acid techno at points, but I like that
Vapourspace
Ø and other stuff on Sakho

Other:

More GYBE and Tortoise - seems to fit with the autumnal climate
Moondog (I must be late on this, but it's good stuff)
 

bunnnnnn

Well-known member
Also been checking:

Electronic:


Mono Junk (Kimmo Ripatti) - verges on acid techno at points, but I like that
Vapourspace
Ø and other stuff on Sakho


LOVE those early DUM records by kim rapatti: mono junk, melody boy 2000, etc. have been listening to those lots lately too. lots of similarities to early sahko (besides the obvious finnish minimal connection) and some of it sounds endearingly bedroom (esp. the melody boy 2000 12" with spiral biro writing circulating across the blank side). this stuff seems mostly to have been quietly forgotten about.

also, nudged by simon reynolds' retro blissblog posts, been listening to lots of mover / cold rush / pcp stuff. makes good listening as the nights draw inwards!!
 
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