Daniel Schmidt and the Berkley Gamelan

Abies Firma

scum stats: apparently two versions, one with a CD included (limited to 1000) and the other without.

Sometimes an intriguing cover is all you need to pull you into an orbit.

The picture of Schmidt, his first-born child Loren sitting in his lap, at a gamelan he himself built, is just perfection.

The foggy reds at the top of the frame, melting perfecting into Schmidt’s own red locks, through his beard, angled downward to his child’s head…it all feels like chest-tighteningly Renaissance tableau.

I don’t know if I have any other gamelan records, but I’ll be damned if this isn’t an amazing intro.

The companion booklet goes amazingly in-depth and overboard, complete with musical notation and metallurgical insights into the actual building of these instruments. The fact that Lou Harrison taught a course on tuning and intonation at the Center for World Music in Berkeley, CA in 1975, that culminated in a performance by class participants including Schmidt, Jeff Abell, Philip Corner, David Doty, Peter Plonsky, Barbara Benary, is cited by Schmidt as “the beginning of the American gamelan on the West Coast” and while I’ve never heard of ANY of these names previously…doesn’t that just seem like something you wish you could’ve witnessed? Most of these people would go on to build their own gamelan or gamelan-inspired instruments and set into motion a series of projects, collaboration and event in the creation of a new musical community.

The sounds in the recording range from plonky, almost childish drip drops, to haunting, eerie soundscapes and everywhere in between. I particularly enjoyed “Rebab Delay” which is, as described by Schmidt “The left channel present the appearance of new material and the right channel present material delayed by a tape loop. As I settle into the mediation, I respond to the delayed material, which I have played only moments before, and this response appears in the left channel.”

THAT song isn’t even on a gamelan, but rather the rebab, a bowed string instrument. Regardless, it’s got vibe for days. Dig it.

(it’s worth noting that the accompanying notes seem to refer to gamelan as both a style and an instrument, whereas externally I’m hard-pressed to identify an instrument named “gamelan.” Maybe they’re using interchangeably with malletophones? I’m not exactly sure)

The wormhole opening before me appears massive, but I fully submit to its gravitational pull.