Recorded music from Bali

Bali as well as the rest of Indonesia has a long musical tradition. Visitors to Bali may want to take a memory of the trip home with them, in the form of a music CD. My Rough Guide to Bali, lists a selection of famous CD titles that can be widely found.

•CDs from Bali

CD shops in the Kuta / Sanur area often have the traditional music CD’s. In Seminyak you might try the stall outside Bintang supermarket and in Ubud Ganesha Bookshop. Ganesha has a website where you can order music CD’s, which include both Balinese and Indonesian music.

Here are some recommended music CD’s in Bali.

•Angklung Sidan (Bali Stereo). The smaller, lighter, processional gamelan orchestra from the village of Sidan plays ceremonial classics.

•The Best of Gamelan Bali Parts 1 and 2 (Rick’s/Maharani). Two volume compilation of various different gamelan styles, including the music that accompanies the Jauk demon dance, and a piece for the rarely heard wooden xylophone, the gambang.

•The Best of Gamelan Gender (Rick’s/Maharani). Sukawati village recording of the special gender wayang quartet, used as accompaniment to shadow-puppet plays.

•Dengung Instrumental: Sabilangun (SP Records). Not strictly Balinese, but played in every hotel, restaurant and tape shop, this is a classic tape of Sundanese (west Javan) degung music. The softer gamelan is fronted by a strong part for the bamboo flute, which lends a lovely dreamy quality to this exceptionally sensual music.

•The Exotic Sounds of Bali (Rick’s/Maharani). Compilation of different styles played by Ubud musicians, including pieces for the genggong (Jew’s harp) and the gong suling (gamelan orchestra with bamboo flute), and excerpts from the a capella kecak and the electrifying kebyar duduk dances.

•Festival Gong Kebyar Se Bali 1982, Juaru I (Bali Stereo). Award winning gamelan orchestra from the village of Angantaka playing a selection of its best gong kebyar pieces fast, furious and quintessentially Balinese.

•The Very Best of Kecak Dance (Rick’s/Maharani). The haunting a capella vocals of the all-male choir that accompanies the spectacular kecak (monkey) dance.

CDs available outside Indonesia

•Bali : Traditional Musicians – A Suite of Tropical Music and Sounds (World Network, Germany). A wonderful primer featuring every kind of Balinese music, from gamelan to flirt-dances and scat-song. Plus some great frog sounds.

•Bali : Gamelan and Kecak (Elektra Nonesuch, US). Another fine cross section of gamelan and other music, including gong kebyar, gender wayang ensemble for shadow plays, kecak and frog-dance genggong.

•Bali : Musique pour le Gong Gede (Ocora, France). A recording of the older, gentler style of / Balinese gamelan, played by two ensembles from Batur and Tampaksiring.

•Bali : Sebatu – les danses masquees (Ocora, France). A very lively and exciting recording of topeng mask dramas by the gong kebyar ensemble from the village of Sebatu.

•Bamboo Ensemble of Sangkar Agung Village : Jegog (JVC,Japan). A wonderful recording of a jegog (bamboo) gamelan ensemble. If you don’t manage to hear one in Bali, then this is the next best thing. A vigorous and sonorous sound, more mellow than the bronze gamelans, enlivened further by audience reaction.

•Gamelan Batel Wayang Ramayana (CMP,Germany). Village gamelan from Sading performs music from the shadow-puppet play. Excellent recording.

•Gamelan Eka Cita : Gamelan Gong Kebyar (King,Jappan). A terrific example in the World Music Library series of the Balinese kebyar style. The group is from a small village near Denpasar.

•Gamelan Gong Kebyar (III) (JVC,Japan). Probably the best introduction to the kebyar style from the gamelan of Tejakula in northern Bali, noted for its larger than usual ensemble of instruments. Bold and glittering with strong percussion and drums.

•Gamelan Semar Pegulingan : The Heavenly Orchestra of Bali (CMP,Germany). A beautifully sonorous recording of the gentle, older gamelan from the village of Kamasan in eastern Bali. Not as wild and frenetic as much Balinese music.

•Gong Gede of Batur and Tampaksiring : Musique pur le Gong Gede (Ocora,France). Another good recording of the older pre-kebyar style for religious rather than courtly purposes.

•Jegog of Negara (King,Japan). Another bamboo ensemble from the village of Negara in the west of Bali. Wonderful textures, both percussive and sonorous.

•Music for the Gods (Rykodisc,US). Valuable not only for its unique historic recordings, but as a good all round introduction to Balinese music. In 1941, the Fahnestock brothers, Bruce and Sheridan, American anthropologist, recorded Balinese music using disc-cutting machines and miles of cable (the cable enabled them to record performances on shore but keep the heavy equipment on board ship). The recordings were dispatched home and sat in an attic for forty years until the Library of Congress and Mickey Hart produced this disc. These are probably the oldest existing recordings of this repertoire, captured at a moment before the arrival of modern technology and tourism. Only specialist will appreciate the changes in the music, but all the same, these are fascinating examples of gamelan, kecak, log drum and other music rescued from another era.

•Music of the Wayang Kulit : A Shadow Play from the Mahabharata (JVC,Japan). Sungnarration and percussion accompaniment to the wayang kulit.

•Peliatan Kecak, The Choral Dramas of Peliatan Village (JVC,Japan). A choral incantation of the Ramayana epic by a cast of 300. An amazing sound – though only devotees will last the course.

If you want something as a gift for a friend, or for yourself to use as background music, the Sudanese Dengung Instrumental: Sabilangun works well.