Music of the Gamelan Gong Kebyar, vol. 1, is a thrilling collection of Bali's most popular kind of gamelan muisc. The gamelan gong kebyar is the modern concert orchestra of about 30 musicians, playing a variety of bronze metallophones, tuned gongs, drums and flutes. The style itself -- known simply as kebyar -- is relatively new, born in 1914 through the competition of two orchestras in North Bali. In reflection of those turbulent times, the music is explosive, virtuosic and colorful in character.

Volume One focuses on the musicians of STSI Denpasar, Bali's National Institute of the Arts. They are led by I Wayan Berata, now in his sixties, who as a composer and teacher has played a pivotal role in the development of kebyar music over the past four decades. The players, all drawn from the senior faculty of STSI, are among Bali's finest, regarded throughout the island as a kind of musical all-star team.

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Of the many kinds of gamelan to be found on the tiny island of Bali, none evokes a more ethereal and enchanted sound world than the rare gamelan of the love god, Gamelan Semar Pegulingan. This is the first commercial recording of the Semar Pegulingan type of gamelan (except for three 78-rpm discs, now rare collectors' items). By the 1930s, Semar Pegulingan, which was originally a palace gamelan, was preserved in only a few villages. Now, however, the gamelan has been restored to life with a repertory that derives from the old traditions, but is strongly influenced by the innovations of 20th-century Balinese music.

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This first album of the influential Explorer Series was a harbinger of the present fascination with traditional world music. British producer David Lewiston was moved to tape these illuminating works in 1966 during a visit to Indonesia. When he auditioned his finds for Teresa (Tracey) Sterne (1927-2000) of Nonesuch Records, she decided to release them, even though unadulterated field recordings had never before been marketed as entertainment for discerning listeners. The eight tracks function as a stylistic sampler, ranging from bell-like, percussive gamelans to a flute solo accompanied by drums and what sounds like a mouth harp. There is also a sweet lullaby sung by a young girl with a fresh, hesitant voice. However, the single most amazing track is an excerpt from a kecak, or monkey chant, where scores of male voices face off in uneven, staccato yips, groans, and yells, over a foundation of hypnotic repeated melodic fragments. --Christina Roden

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The gradual reissue of the complete Nonesuch Explorer Series on CD continues with 13 albums of field recordings from the South Pacific and Indonesia. Producer David Lewiston's follow-up to his legendary Music from the Morning of the World opens with two chiming, irresistible gamelan tracks, which sound like a cross between a carillon struck by raindrops and half-time in heaven. But the final piece, "Kecak," is a mesmerizing 22-minute chant based upon the Ramayana, a 2,000-year-old epic. It is performed by 100 or more men, who squat in a circle facing one another. The tale of Rama and Sita's rescue by a friendly horde of monkeys is told via propulsive, interwoven shouts, cries, and exhortations. The work also serves as an exorcism, since demons move only in a straight line and are confused by jagged rhythms. A late-night FM radio favorite during the '60s, this piece is still an astonishing experience. --Christina Roden

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The shadow play generally lasts all night. In this case, bronze keys suspended over bamboo tube resonators, which provide the musical background, are reinforced by a few small gongs and drums. Intrigue, romance, battles, comedy, wisdom, and mystic symbolism all have their place in the performance. The music, in its range of expressiveness, balance of form, and economy of means, has all the hallmarks of the abstract and fully realized sound architecture that characterizes a classical style. The compositions recorded here represent some of the principal pieces that might be heard in a typical play.

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A longtime rock drummer playing at the fringe of his genre's rhythms, former Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart submerges himself in Balinese gamelan music with this three-CD package. Hart's recordings, gathered over three days in early 1998, are distinguished by remarkable excellence, both in the execution of the performances and in the sound quality. With each ensemble holding a slightly different sound as its own, the music ranges from all-percussion to percussion with bamboo flutes and/or two-string fiddles that sound like the Chinese erhu. But there's also a 54-minute choral work that's both built on gamelan and usually performed for tourists. Here the piece, "Kepandung Sita," is a maze of chants and interlocked antiphony, all of it sung in a percussive, mesmerizing display of electric, crescendo-like rises that make the blood run thin. Not to be misconstrued as a neotraditionalist, Hart also includes three newly composed works on the third CD. Each seems entirely traditional and yet pulsing with colors that you hear nowhere else on the set, marking the new works as a sort of footpath into the gamelan's future in Balinese art music. Hart's snapshot of the Balinese gamelan stands on its own for a wide range of listeners. It does so gracefully and with great success. --Andrew Bartlett

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Bali's most popular ensemble is still the large gamelan gong, consisting of 25 to 30 musicians. The principal melody instruments are metallophones, xylophone-like instruments with bronze keys. Sets of small, tuned gong kettles provide melodic ornaments, while the penetrating bass tones of great gongs punctuate larger phrases. Clashing cymbals add to the overall glitter. A flute or stringed instrument sweetens the melody. The entire structure is supported by two drummers, who create the crucial rhythmic underpinning. The kecak is uniquely Balinese. The rhythmic interlocking "tjak-tjak-tjak-tjak," chanted by a large group of male voices, originated as the accompaniment to an ancient trance dance. It is a performance of the Ramayana, where the monkey hordes come to the aid of King Rama in his battle with the evil King Rawana. The 80 members of the Sekaha Ganda Sari are heard in this kecak performance.

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Since the West became acquainted with it in the late 1920s, Balinese gamelan music has inspired musicologists, given birth to minimalism, and even been mimicked by electronica artists. It's easy to hear why: with its complex, polyrhythmic sounds played out on perfectly tuned gongs and chimes, gamelan music is one of the most exciting and exotic sounds heard in the world. It's gorgeous to listen to, thrilling to witness, and sounds like nothing else on earth. On The Roots of Gamelan, we're given a real treat: the earliest commercially available recordings of gamelan music (dating from 1928), along with the 1941 transcriptions that composers Colin McPhee and Benjamin Britten made in their attempt to recreate gamelan sounds with Western instrumentation (mainly, the piano). Recording quality is mediocre here, but the music pours forth. A wide variety of styles is played (from the lyrical and comedic Janger to the wildly furious Kebyar compositions) by some of the finest gamelan musicians alive in the era of recorded music. This aural history lesson is filled with delights, and it's easy to see why composers Britten and McPhee (and latter, a whole batch of New Music composers, including Harry Partch) were smitten with the music. And, though the pair are unable to convey the power of the gamelan on their Steinways, it's fascinating to hear their interpretations. --Jason Verlinde

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Recorded by David Lewiston in 1987, these are fine recordings of both famous and little-heard strains of Indonesian music. In a series of recordings that include both large gamelan orchestras and small ensembles, he has captured the wide scope of the music of Bali. In addition to the gamelan works we are offered some very unique sounds: a palm bark version of the Jew's harp; a reed instrument with a distinctly "Hendrix on the bagpipes" sound. Perhaps most enjoyable is a recording of a passing parade, with various instruments, rhythms, and melodies drifting by in the sort of cacophony associated with Charles Ive's marching band works. Lewiston's offering is invaluable. -- Louis Gibson

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CUDAMANI: The Seven Tone Gamelan Orchestra of Pengosekan, Bali, features one of Bali's most vibrant new gamelan ensembles. The thirty virtuosic musicians of CUDAMANI, led by Dewa Putu Berata, play on an unusual type of hybrid gamelan orchestra created in the 1980s. With seven tones rather than the usual five, this gamelan semara dana allows the freedom to play in unusual modes -- and thereby create and re-create a dazzling variety of music and dance works, opening up entirely new vistas in contemporary gamelan performance.

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Part of Sound of the World Series.

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