I was digging through some old words about the Stooges this week and the quote about Iggy Pop getting turned on to gamelan music while he was working as a record store clerk stuck with me. So I dug through the piles and blew the dust off this sucker that I'd bought some time ago but never listened to.

While a little more raw than some of the other gamelan I've been hip to, the Ngaben Funerary ritual recorded in Bali in 2011 is still pretty damn compelling. And while I know they're not technically song titles, track names like "At The House Of The Deceased" and "Procession To The Cremation Ground" are just about the most metal ways to describe music. Which is great, because just about all of the instrumentation here is some form of banging on metal.

The liner notes go into solid detail about how the introduction of beleganjur gamelan contests in Bali in the 1980's has led to a shift in style, with far more standardization and focus on virtuosity and technical prowess during performance. I guess in some myopic way I never considered the evolution of centuries old folk music to have transitioned so...recently. That seems like some pop music shit.

Anyway, I appreciate the presentation here. Slowly but surely I'm getting a more rounded understanding of the people and presentation of this music. And it feels good.