Reviewed by Sadie O., 3/2/07
Popular Gamelan, as developed while Sukarno was banning all Western music and instruments. The orchestra sounds pretty straight-up gamelan to my untrained ears, but the singing is definitely distinctive. You experimental fans should dig the heck out of this. I find it pretty cool in bite-sized chunks. I could actually see playing this alongside Siouxsie and the Banshees or Nina Hagen or Yoko Ono…
All in Javanese, no FCCs that I can possibly imagine. I like the first track – and not just because I wasn’t worn out when I heard it. Interesting stuff…
1. ***sprightly uptempo gamelon with distinctly pop sensibilities, and a definite bit of movie soundtrack theatricality. Complex and quite pretty alto female vocals, and all sorts of odd male growls and howls in background.
2. **beat starts and stops all over the place. Dramatic vocals. Percussion is particularly interesting.
3. **uptempo (mostly) but with lots of random bits. It’s pretty hard to follow this, frankly!
4. *OK, really it’s pretty much the same sort of thing throughout. I think this cut may be on the whole a bit more subdued, but it’s hard to tell…
5. *this one definitely seems like a bit of a lament, but who knows?
6. **Very slow and subdued intro. I’m sort of seeing the heroine lost in the wild jungle, trying to avoid the scary Javanese demons, but I could just be weird. (I’m pretty sure she gets captured at the end…)
7. *low-key random intro. Gets manic after a couple of minutes.
8. *similar.