The
percussion-based Javanese gamelan orchestra is one of the world's great musical
traditions. Here five Vancouver composer-performers bring their experience in
this and other forms of music -- Western classical, new music, jazz, Vietnamese
and Balinese musics, electroacoustic composition, and improvisation --
extending the tradition in ways of fascinating beauty.
Founded in 1986, Gamelan Madu Sari ("The Essence of Honey") has
performed traditional and new music for gamelan as well traditional Javanese
dance, dance drama, shadow play, and contemporary multimedia works. For its
first record the Gamelan has selected compositions created on it by four
composers who have also been active as performers in the group over the years,
and by jazz/improv pianist Paul Plimley. Two sets of gamelan instruments are
represented, and each work takes a novel approach to form, with a unique play
of instrumental colours. Kenneth Newby's "Dreams He is a Ball of Fire...
Or a Hummingbird" includes spoken text, choral singing, and interlocking
lines of rhythmically charged counterpoint, all in celebration of the birth of
his son. Its archetypal text and ritual mood are characteristic of Newby's music,
which is concerned with the natural world, the meeting of cultures, "deep listening" and transcendence (Ecology of Souls, 1993; Sirens, 1997; Newby was also prominent in the ethno-ambient groups Trance Mission and Lights in a Fat City). Michael O'Neill's "Lessons of the Garden" uses hocketing between the two gamelan tuning systems, slendro and pelog, to produce an expanded mode. Partly inspired by Ravel and minimalism, it swells and flows. O'Neill also plays and composes new music for Scottish bagpipes, and "Lessons" begins with an eerie prelude for droning plastic chanters and clanging clusters of bronze.
Chris Miller's two pieces are a study in contrasts. "Thinly,
roundly," a collaboration with the Vancouver-based Vietnamese duo Khac
Chi, combines the liquid tones of two genders (Javanese resonating
metallophones) with the bending melismas of two dan bau (Vietnamese
monochords). Its melodies and textures build in subtle transformations from a
contemplative opening dialogue towards a dancing, unifying conclusion.
"Whining horses eat more HEY doncha no" is a deadpan adaptation of
certain traditional gamelan structures to something perhaps closer to
avant-garde pointillism: spare and quirky, it seems to question its very
nature. Mark Parlett's "Intimate Distance" is probably the densest
composition on the record; its layers of instruments and a vocal duo combine in
unpredictable ways in search of some elusive new harmony between the individual
self and the world's being. Paul Plimley's "Born Again Needle
Dancers" brings a jazz sensibility, wordless vocals, group improvisation,
and an ingenious polyrhythmic and tonal conception to his exploration of the
gamelan's resources. Plimley's interest in non-western traditions has also
notably resulted in duets with South Indian percussionist Trichy Sankaran,
Ivory Ganesh Meets Doctor Drums (Songlines 1998).
Each piece in its own way furthers the dialogue between East and West,
developing the expressive potential of the gamelan, not just as a source of
sensuous, intriguing timbres but also as a deep tradition with its own
informing ethos and set of musical values (for example, freedom of individual
expre
ssion within a complex and highly controlled social organization of
sound). New Nectar is a major contribution to this ongoing cross-cultural
experiment; it can equally be appreciated for its inclusive approach to forging
a new music of substance and delight beyond categories.
Tracks:
Kenneth Newby, with text by Robert Anthony
"Dreams He is a Ball of Fire... Or a Hummingbird"
* I
* II
* III
Chris Miller
with Khac Chi and Ngoc Bich, dan bau
* 4 thinly, roundly
Michael O'Neill
"Lessons of the Garden"
* Gate
* Patj
* Waterway
Mark Parlett
* Intimate Distance
Chris Miller
* 9 whining horses eat more HEY doncha no
Paul Plimley
* Born Again Needle Dancers
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