Bali 1928 – Anthology: The First Recordings

If I told you this disc was recorded yesterday, you’d think it was the most cutting-edge thing you’d heard all year. In fact, it's the culmination of World Arbiter's restoration and reissue of the first recordings of Balinese gamelan, collecting highlights from five previous volumes and accompanied online by silent films of many of the performers in action. This compilation's 25 tracks are taken evenly from its predecessors, so you get more than 15 different groups playing around a dozen different styles of Balinese music. As a result, the distinguishing features of each permutation of (mostly) bronze percussion become very clear, and styles that can prove a bit challenging over a whole album – particularly the solo singing – can be sampled in more digestible portions.

The limitations of 78rpm discs seem to have driven the artists to pour a lifetime of music into each three-minute burst. I love the bronze percussion most of all – especially the large gong kebyar and small gender wayang ensembles – but every track is riveting, provoking a double-take, or a smile, or a raised eyebrow. The instrumental numbers thrum and shimmer, clamorous one moment, sensuous the next. The singers move between otherworldly keening and music-hall jocundity; it's magical.