The first album by Gamelan Bike-Bike is a wonderful contribution to the growing body of intercultural collaborative works for gamelan and gamelan-inspired ensembles. The quality of the compositions, performances, instruments and recording is superb. The album is the first release on the Resonance Imprint published by Insitu Recordings, an innovative cross-cultural media project initiated by Balinese and North American musicians, composers and recording engineers.  

The innovative use of recycled materials to build new DIY instruments extends a tradition of autochthonous North American gamelan that includes the Lightbulb ensemble and Harrison and Colvig’s sets. The activist impulse to create a more mobile ensemble in order to free gamelan from its ensconced position in the university—and the cultural baggage it carries—is a laudable goal.

The basic forms of musical organization and orchestration heard on these four tracks are continuous with contemporary Balinese styles. This album is not revolutionary in that sense, but as a result it will be intelligible (and useful!) to young Balinese composers looking for inspiration. Any of these pieces could be arranged, without too much work, for Balinese seven-tone ensembles. The playing on this album is truly excellent. It is a testament to the intercultural evolution of gamelan that both the compositions and the performances heard on this album could have come from either Bali or North America.

I wish the publication included more detailed liner notes. I would like to know more about how the instruments themselves were made and tuned. They appear to adhere to Balinese seven-tone paired tuning, but details on this would be welcome. I would also like to know more about how the group came together and hear from the composers about their works.

The Tracks:

Tailwind. Robyn Jacob / George Rahi. The tone of the bike-tube instruments recalls the seven-tone slonding ensemble and this work strongly evokes experimental pieces for that ensemble by the composer I Madé Subandi. Subandi’s compositions often employ patterns of different lengths, short canon phrases and forms of polyphony. The use of dynamics in Tailwind is subtle and controlled and recall Balinese dynamics in short (batel) patterns. The use of cedugan (stick) drumming tends to overwhelm the delicate tubular chimes; the balance is more convincing alongside the ceng-ceng kopyak cymbals in the second half of the piece.

Axle Grease. Tony Kastelic. The opening of this composition allows us to hear the bike instruments closely and appreciate their unique tone. This work demonstrates a solid understanding of Balinese interlocking techniques (kotekan) and incorporates short cyclic patterns recalling Balinese gilak forms. The geared ceng-ceng cymbal set is an original addition that contributes a unique timbre. It would be interesting to know if the supporting instruments are made locally as well. The playful tempos keep the listener on their toes. 

Kembang Kumbang. I Putu Gede Sukaryana (Balot). Balot is one of Bali’s most creative and important young composers. He is an excellent performer of several traditional styles and an adventurous composer who cut his teeth studying under Subandi in his Ceraken arts collective. This is the most expressive and complex of the compositions on the album, in which Balot explores the full range and timbral possibilities of these new instruments. He hasn’t pulled any punches in terms of technique, and the players pull it off impressively. As in many of the experimental works (musik kontemporer) emerging from Ceraken group, Kembang Kumbang employs phrases of different lengths, shifting subdivisions, tabla-inspired patterns on the kendang drums, odd numbered cycles and polyrhythms. Some of these appear to break or phase in ways that would be nearly impossible to notate and perform exactly the same way twice. I hear the influence of a complex aesthetic feedback loop that might be diagramed thusly: Gong Kebyar->Michael Tenzer->Ceraken->Peter Steele->Ceraken->Balot->Bike-Bike.

New Creation Dog Iced Cream. Shawn Sekiya. The classic 5-note ngecek pattern that is a hallmark of the kebyar style is playfully reimagined here in new musical contexts. Sekiya exploits interesting timbral variations across the range of the bicycle instruments as a means to develop his compositional motives. The higher range of the bike-chimes sometimes sounds like an altogether different instrument. The drumming is very finely composed and clearly executed. Moments of this composition evoke Evan Ziporyn’s experimental works for gamelan.

This is not background music. It demands, and deserves, our full attention.