Gamelan Son Of Lion / Sonogram
Album: Sonogram   Collection:General
Artist:Gamelan Son Of Lion   Added:Mar 2009
Label:Innova Recordings  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2009-04-12 Pull Date: 2009-06-14 Charts: Classical/Experimental
Week Ending: Jun 7 May 24 May 10 May 3 Apr 26 Apr 19
Airplays: 1 1 1 1 2 5

Recent Airplay
1. May 11, 2013: Music Casserole
River Kotekan - Lisa Karrer, Descarga Elizabeth - David Demnitz
4. May 23, 2009: Music Casserole
Bang On A Tin Can - Laura Liben
2. Oct 30, 2009: Mittens & Scarves
Naked We Stand - David Simons
5. May 06, 2009: KZSU's Heartbleeps
9-11: A Memorial Suite: B. Laura Liben
3. Jun 05, 2009: Memory Select
Music Box - Jody Krushal
6. May 01, 2009: Emphysema For Emphasis
She (Really) Had To Go - John Morton

Album Review
Brick
Reviewed 2009-04-08
Gamelan Son of Lion- Sonogram

Modern classical that uses traditional Javanese Gamelan music as an influence. Steel keys, vibraphones, gongs, plucked strings, metallophones, hand drums, hubcaps, and deconstructed toy instruments make the soundbed. Numerous tempo changes and super complex time signatures mess with your heads. Most have a big build to them as multiple parts are introduced. Tone is somewhat haunting, heady, and goofy, like being submerged in jello while awake for too long on ambien. Excellent music right here, you must play this.
FCC Clean- BRICK


CD1
1) hypnotic hand percussion, repeated interlocking heady vibrating instrument line performed at various speeds and pitches occasionally working isolation. Builds in speed and intensity.
2) droney, ghostly processed and deranged toy instrumed tones with no percussion, builds into super trippy tinkly dream with too many instruments to count. wow.
3) Fem Gaelic vox singing a scottish lullaby in 9/8 time with plucked string, and metallophone accompaniment.
4)Twinkly metallophone, with haunted eastern sounding wind harmonies, deeper gong tones, dark violin accompaniment, shifting tempo
5) subtle clinky percussion & rattling, high register vibraphones working slightly of each other, deep gong, super complex pygmy rhythm explained in liner notes. Ends with the percussion isolated.
6) Piano duet Percussion duet and vocal duet all playing interlocking parts. Song is somewhat in english and about a trip down the delaware river. Not a traditional gamelan song, but an interesting experiment with Western folk music put to gamelan melodic and rhythmic concepts.
7) starts with low gong tone, slow, dreamy, drony, nightmarish, ethereal, no percussion, ends with long ehtereal drone

CD 2

1) opening track of a mini suite for 9/11(encompassing tracks 1-7). vocals about the twin towers falling w/ percussion, and gamelan tone accompaniment.
2) instrumental, metallophone tones, slow rising, warmer tones w/ sense of impending doom
3) richer, violin tones, woodwind part like a bad guy snooping around in a film, some dissonance, w/ gamelan pulse
4) stark cold sounding, isolated creepy high pitch gamelan tones, rich deep pulses, percussion bashouts, tritones, cymbals
5) rich, warm soundting tones contasted with cold and fast, with creepy cover of "pomp and cirucmstance," female vox sing patriotic hymn, "america be wise"
6) dark traditional gamelan sounds, dissonance takes over, like toy instruments from a koi pond drowning nightmare
7) slow, sorrowful but warm tones low in the register. short.
8) Japanese Restaurantcore Music, lower strings, cheesy fem vox
9) starts with gong and woodblock percussion, builds into hypnotic traditional gamelan hypnotic love
10) starts with flute intro, metallophone enters 13/8 rhyhhm, that gradually winds down to 2/8 time. song is apparently about traffic
11)slower, more plodding childrens cradle gamelan written in 7-voice rhythmic canon.
12) solo clarinet klezmer noodling intro, quasi gypsy improv style , inspired by brahms. gamelan instruments used more for punctuation.


Track Listing
1. Naked We Stand - David Simons   10. 9-11: A Memorial Suite: C. Daniel Goode
2. She (Really) Had To Go - John Morton   11. 9-11: A Memorial Suite: D. David Simons
3. Jigalullaby - Barbara Benary   12. 9-11: A Memorial Suite: E. David Demnitz
4. Music Box - Jody Krushal   13. 9-11: A Memorial Suite: F. Laura Liben
5. Bang On A Tin Can - Laura Liben   14. 9-11: A Memorial Suite: G. Daniel Goode
6. River Kotekan - Lisa Karrer   15. Kacapi - Lisa Karrer
7. Telling Time - Miquel Fasconi   16. Descarga Elizabeth - David Demnitz
8. 9-11: A Memorial Suite: A. Barbara Benary   17. Traffic - Laura Liben
9. 9-11: A Memorial Suite: B. Laura Liben   18. Gamelon Around - Denman Maroney
  19. Sad/Happy - Daniel Goode