Volume 25 Issue 3 - November 2019

Gamelan Music of

Gamelan Music of Cirebon, Indonesia: Volume 3 Gamelan Sinar Surya; Richard North Sinar Surya Records G5503 (gamelansb.com) !! Richard North, the Californiabased gamelan musician and lecturer at UC Santa Barbara, has been studying, teaching and performing gamelan music and related arts since 1972. This passion has taken him from Sundanese villages in highland West Java to the coastal palaces of the Sultans of Cirebon on the island of Java. Recognized today as an authority on the musical traditions of the ancient kingdom of Cirebon, North has called it “an ancient spiritual centre [where] all of the arts radiate a wonderful vitality and energy.” His contributions to the preservation, transmission and development of Cirebonese gamelan music have not gone unappreciated – they have been rewarded by both Cirebon’s royal palace and the Indonesian government. Back home in Santa Barbara, North has directed the community group Gamelan Sinar Surya since 2002. The group plays two complete gamelan orchestras. The prawa set (in a 5-tone tuning without semitones) plays gamelan repertoires of Cirebon, Sunda and Malaysia. The pelog set (in a 7-tone tuning with semitones) plays pelog gamelan musics of Cirebon, as well as Sundanese degung klasik music which typically uses instruments tuned to a 5-tone subset of pelog. The three CDs in this review are a record of Gamelan Sinar Surya’s dedication to the study and performance of a repertoire rarely heard outside its Cirebon homeland. Released nine years ago, Gamelan of Java, Vol. 5: Cirebon Tradition in America was a 2010 landmark: the first commercial recording by an American group of examples of five traditional gamelan genres practised in Cirebon. It gave non-insiders a tantalizing taste of the aristocratic and ritual music of this rich 500-year-old musical culture. This is music on a more intimate scale than the larger and better-known gamelans of Southcentral Java and Bali. My favourite track is Pacul Goang (Chipped Rice Hoe), characterized at first by the gentle musical ambiance I associate with gamelan Cirebon performance, which then turns fast, fiery and dense in texture. Its atmospheric hallmarks include the dynamic playing of the kendang and larger bedhug (drums), the characteristically sweet suling (bamboo flute) melodic riffs in the soft sections, and the upbeat alok vocalizations of the musicians imbuing life to the instrumentals in the animated fast section. Gamelan Music of Cirebon, Indonesia (2015) is the second volume in the series. Gamelan Sinar Surya plays nine pieces on gamelan pelog and gamelan prawa. Standouts for me are the performances of the endangered ritual genres, the joyous Something in the Air Japanese Improvisation Moves Far Beyond its Island Base KEN WAXMAN Legendary as the country where every type of Western music has some followers and where every disc extant is rumoured to exist in some form or another, Japan likewise has a healthy jazz and free music scene. This appreciation extends to homegrown improvisers, but few are known throughout the larger musical world. Not only do these discs demonstrate how this situation is changing as Asian players interact with more Westerners, but some outsider players have also moved there since they found the country’s audiences to be sympathetic to their music. In the former group, one of the most prominent is Hiroshima-born alto saxophonist/ clarinetist Akira Sakata, 74, who’s been improvising in an individual free jazz style since the early 1970s which also involves his off-thewall vocalizing. A marine biologist as well as a musician, Sakata organized the co-operative trio Arashi a few years ago with Norwegian percussionist Paal Nilssen-Love and Swedish bassist Johan Berthling. The exciting Jikan Arashi (PNL Records PNL 045 paalnilssen-love.com) is its newest disc. Reminiscent of the heyday of “The New Thing” sound explorers, on saxophone, Sakata has seemingly never found a tone he couldn’t split or a timbre he couldn’t overblow. This is demonstrated most convincingly on the extended Yamanoue-no- Okura with a solo that’s all snarls and growls, and that inflates with pressurized vibratos and propelled reed bites each time he outputs a phrase. In sympathy, Betherling’s accelerated strumming and Nilssen-Love’s constant thumping, fluidly pulse and push with the same intensity. Besides the trio’s sliding and shredding instrumentally up and down the scale, here and elsewhere Sakata vocalizes guttural syllables that wouldn’t be out of place on a Japanese horror film soundtrack. Eventually, gurgles and mumbles that involve the guts and throat more than the mouth and lips give way to small instrument whumps and cymbal lacerations from the drummer culminating in triple intensity. While the saxophonist’s frenetic Aylerian screams and pressurized stutters mix with Nilssen- Love’s constant pounding on the title track, he also shows off restrained chalumeau-register clarinet storytelling on Tsuioku, partnered by cymbal slides. Despite his concluding shrilling output and a return to guttural mumbling, Jikan is another indication of why the reedist has maintained his creativity over the decades. Another first-generation Japanese improviser who has maintained a similar musical ingenuity is Yokohama-born percussionist Sabu Toyozumi, two years Sakata’s senior. Having worked over the years in different-sized assemblages with local and foreign Free Music players, Sol Abstraction (Sol Disk SD 1901 soldisk.com) is a stripped-down live date from the Philippines where he goes head-to-head with American alto saxophonist Rick Countryman on nine tracks. A committed free jazzer, the saxophonist’s collection of multiphonics, irregularly pitched vibrations, tension- building and sopranissimo screams are met with expressive touches, resonating conga-like hand slaps brought into play alongside claps and swing affiliations. Although only the extended Integrity of Creation includes what could be termed an albeit brief drum solo of claps, clatter, press rolls and rattles, Toyozumi’s constant rumbles and patterns keep up with Countryman who crams as many notes as he can into every bar, pulls his split tones as far as possible without breakage and triple tongues into the stratosphere before ending with crying flutter tonguing. The drummer’s skill using the erhu or spike fiddle is also displayed on a couple of related tracks as he cannily manages to mirror the saxophonist’s circular textural screams and squeaky overblowing with two-stringed slices, even as place-marking drum beats remain. The two also manage to append a relaxed shuffle groove to the feverish sallies that make up Broken Art Part I and Part II, but the best expression of Toyozumi’s – and by extension Countryman’s – versatility occurs on the three parts of Ballad of Mototeru Takagi. A threnody for a deceased saxophonist colleague, the suite moves from tongue-slapping, reed-shaking theme development to repeated diaphragm-intense cries from the saxophonist, as the drummer’s narrative 90 | November 2019 thewholenote.com

gong renteng, magic-imbued denggung and ancient sacred gong sekati, genres happily experiencing a very recent revival. Gamelan Music of Cirebon, Indonesia: Volume 3 (2019) features not only five different Cirebon gong ensembles but also a solo appearance of the rare mellow-sounding Cirebonese gender (multi-octave metalophone). The liner notes relate that “To tell a Cirebon musician that their playing is ‘leres,’ or correct, is faint praise. A true compliment is to say that their music is ‘urip’ – alive!” The special spirit and sound of the instrumental music of Cirebon is very much alive on these albums. Andrew Timar Tangos… and something more Grupo Encuentros; Alicia Terzian Navona Records nv6246 (navonarecords.com) !! In 1979 , Argentiniancomposer/ musicologist/ conductor Alicia Terzian created the Grupo Encuentros whose international performances have brought Latin American and Argentine music to listeners around the world. Here, Terzian leads the ensemble in the evolving tango genre. She capably arranges familiar traditional tangos, such as the three Astor Piazzolla pieces, which maintain his rhythmic, melodic and upbeat tango feel. Roggero’s Mimi Pinzon builds from calm to intense while Demare’s 1940s tango Malena features a dramatic, interesting, closing fugue-like section. Listeners wishing to hear the tango evolution will applaud the new works. Finnish composer Tiensuu’s Tango lunar (1989) travels to the new music outer space, as tango lines sound against more electroacoustic washes, soundscapes, squeaks, use of spoken world and mezzo a cappella closing. Terzian’s Argentino Hasta La Muerte has the opening bandoneon and mezzo swells, rubatos and accented notes so tight that it is hard to tell what the lead line is. Her Un Argentino de Vuelta is played with intensity and subtleties, including bandoneon vibrato and fast runs, flute interlude, clarinet repeated-note rhythms, quasi jazzy/ Romantic-style piano solo and faster tango section. In his duet, Llamado de Tambores, composer/bandoneonist Daniel Binelli, with the mezzo vocalist Marta Blanco, tells a tango story with effects and emotional flourishes. All seven performers are great tango interpreters able to change with the tango’s decades-long developments. Wish there were English translations for the words. There is a bit of something for every tango taste to enjoy and explore. Tiina Kiik contribution is cymbals tolling with narrow clangs. Finally Toyozumi’s slaps rebound at a choppier pace as Countryman elaborates the now passive theme with melancholy sound spurts. Moving on a generation and compounding Japanese improvisers, almost-clichéd fascination with electronics is In Cotton and Wool (Ftarri ftarari-980 ftarari.com), a duet between the audio feedback generated by Toshimaru Nakamura’s no-input mixing board and the trumpet and electronics of Berlin’s Axel Dörner. Moving past expected musical tropes, or for some music, the program mixes manipulated loops of industrialstrength voltage feedback from Nakamura’s machine to such an extent that the outcome appears to possess the strength and velocity of both a highspeed locomotive and a tropical thunder storm. This is particularly true of the extended Hemp, especially when extended electronic rumbles nearly attain drum-beat qualities, with Dorner`s response a combination of dissociated peeps and an intermittent moose-call-like ending. Variations of this strategy play out during the subsequent selections, with, for instance, grace notes from the trumpet audible through a cloud of heavily amplified drones on Silk, before the track speeds up to the extent that it could be the sound of a car crash captured in real time, until the noise is abruptly cut off. The loops of blurred whistling and puffs are resolved on the final track, Cashmere, as narrow tongue splatters from the horn are overshadowed by blurred input-output pulses from the mixing board to create an ambulatory synthesized exposition which Dörner amplifies with capillary bites and echoes until brass qualities are buried under synthesized pulsation created by both his and Nakamura’s electronics. More general acceptance of projects like Nakamura-Dörner’s is what persuades even more experimental players to settle in Japan. Case in point is Saskatchewan-native Tim Olive, who lives in Kobe. Using his preferred tools of magnetic pickup and electronics, Olive joins with Beijing-based Yan Jun, who manipulates electronics and field recordings, on Brother of Divinity (845 Audio 845-10 845 audio.bandcamp.com), for a fascinating 28-minute sound collage that admittedly makes even the previous discs appear conventional. A rare electronic session that culminates with foreground resonance after synthesizing the impulses created by the duo, Brother of Divinity works its way from loops of crackles and pops, as distant voice singing or beating out rock-styled music comes in and out of aural focus. As ring modulator-like gonging-feedback loops become more prominent, the blurry interface also takes on percussive side scratches and bounces until what initially seemed to be neverending pulses splinter into chirps and thumps in double counterpoint. With its keyboard-suggested bentnote narrative, the final section becomes more reductionist with metronomic timepiece-like clicks, suggesting a stain spreading slowly on a yielding surface, crunching beats and church-bell-like pealing, project with synthesized pulsations into conclusive buzzes and shuffles. If Japanese free improvisers are little known outside of a small coterie, imagine the situation for a Korean saxophonist committed to experimental music. Yet An Eternal Moment (NoBusiness Records NBCD 115 nobusinessrecords.com) is a 76-minute live 1995 Yamaguchi concert by Japanese percussionist Midori Takada and alto saxophonist Kang Tae Hwan, visiting from Seoul. One track is an extended solo saxophone meditation and the last, Dan-Shi, posits what sonic challenge would result if sax/drum duos like it mixed narrow, high-pitched, sometimes barely audible reed explorations, with gamelan-like marimba pops and sizzling cymbal hisses, besides regular drum beats. However, the key paring is the nearly 42-minute Syun-Soku, During the exposition, Hwan’s strained reed vibrations work up to lacerating split tones and down to narrowed ghost notes, then up to bagpipelike overblowing timbre-smears as Takada hits tuned aluminum bars and shakes reverberating cymbals. Rhythmic drum taps spark thin chirps from the saxophonist, who soon seems able to simultaneously output a slim, whistling tone and more rounded coloratura variations. Reaching the first climax at mid-point, the narrative slows down to the extent that Hwan’s dissonant slurps seem to be being pushed back into his horn’s body tube. Crashing ruffs from the percussionist become non-metered whacks in opposition, helping to transform reed multiphonics into lowpitched trills that neatly affiliate with unforced cymbal patterns, leading to a finale that links splash cymbal power with retrained reed snarls. Politically and sociologically Asia is no longer the Mysterious East for most Westerners. These CDs could provide a similar demystification of sound when it comes to improvised music. thewholenote.com November 2019 | 91