Music
Srepegan Slendro Nem (Winter 2025)
Playing classical compositions through synthesizers is a concept that has been explored extensively in the Western canon of classical music, famously by Wendy Carlos. Indonesian Gamelan has not received the same exploration. Though musicians and groups like David Edren, .gif, and Gamelan Elektronika have explored gamelan music in electronic settings, few have tried transplanting gamelan notation into MIDI and electronic timbres. Furthermore, not much has been done in combining gamelan with rhythms from jungle or reggaeton. In doing so gamelan is brought into a different aesthetic place, nearer to a western listener, and provides a different understanding of the music. If a gong is switched out for a sub-bass + kick would it be seen as foreign at all? By joining modern electronic aesthetics, specifically those created outside of the academy, and traditional gamelan, the question of what makes gamelan sound foreign to the western ears.