Collections of themed recordings curated by John Noise Manis
1 – 14:01 Ketawang PUSPA WARNA slendro manyura, five stanzas, pesindhen Yayuk Sri Rahayu, bawa MINTA JIWA sung by Darsono
2 – 11:43 Ladrang SEKAR GADHUNG slendro manyura, pesindhen Cendaniraras
3 – 11:26 Ladrang GADHUNG MLATI slendro sanga, gender Bu Pringga Hadiwiyono, pesindhen Sri Suparsih
4 – 15:27 Ladrang SEKAR GADHUNG slendro manyura, pesindhen Yayuk Sri Rahayu
5 – 22:11 Ketawang PUSPA WARNA slendro manyura, nine stanzas, pesindhen Cendaniraras
Collection: Gamelan of Java, Lyrichord Series
This album is all about the singing, and very fine it is too, with male choral and female solo vocals soaring over a dense instrumental web… This is deep, immersive music. The mood can be trance-like, stately, skittish and sensuous, sometimes all at once. The disc’s five tracks feature three pieces – two are duplicated, as if the alternate takes are put before the album – with the first version of the title-track being the highlight. The piece that isn’t duplicated, ‘Gadhung Mlati’, is magical music – perhaps literally so, as it is said to come from the submarine court of the Goddess of the South Sea…
John Whitfield, Songlines
This CD was designed mainly around one concept: to show how classical Javanese gamelan music – karawitan – has intrinsic and remarkable capabilities of regenerating itself through internal variations.