Gaga Gundul

Since their eponymous debut in 2017, French electric jazz quartet Peemaï, from Montpellier, have rearranged Asian traditional tunes, following bassist Alfred Vilayleck’s Laotian origins. The band are named after the Buddhist New Year, a celebration dedicated to the idea of washing away the last year’s trouble. After trips to Java and inviting the collective Gayam 16 twice over for workshops and concerts, they deliver this collaborative album of gamelan, the traditional ensemble of massive bronze percussion instruments – metallophones, xylophones and cymbals – characterising the music of the Indonesian islands. “It’s been a long way to learn how to perform with them and materialise this encounter,” says Vilayleck – gamelan uses different harmonic scales, “very different from western music.” Gaga Gundul includes Gayam 16 originals, Javanese traditionals and one track from Laos, ‘Khonsawan’. The fusion works, it’s worth a listen.