The Belgian/Indonesian label ini.itu is a label that releases only vinyl in limited quantities that contains music with connections to Indonesia. With their latest release by Francisco Lopez they gained quite some (well deserved) interest. But before that release they already delivered us a few other good and interesting albums, and one of them is Footpaths and Trade Routes by the musician Anaphoria.
Behind Anaphoria is percussionist Kraig Grady who makes music with a certain traditional connotation. And here we seem to find something along that line.
The connection with Indonesia shouldn't be sought very far for this release. The percussion played seems to be some sort of self-made gamelan. One with a very clear sound when played quickly creates surrounding drone patterns.
Things stay really down to earth creating some sort of state of meditation. Where at points it refers to the Indonesian traditional gamelan music, at the same time it also can be connected to traditional music from Tibet, but always the improvised avant-garde stays near.
The first piece sounds a lot like some kind of improvisation with not clear structure or progression. It more functions as some kind of relaxing music with the soft touches on metal objects creating reverberations that slowly fade in and out. Like wind-chimes moving in the wind. The music has something transcendental without turning into new-age.
The second piece seems much more structured and is closer related the the gamelan music. While the basic ingredient of this track consists of metal percussion here the outcome is much different. Repetitive rhythms are combined with gong like sounds that live their own life. Because of this the piece inhibits a paradoxical feeling. The reverberations we hear here create almost drone like background noises creating some sort of spooky haunting atmosphere. I guess that if you would hear this kind of music coming from a jungle you would become quite scary.
What you directly notice about this piece is the richer sound color. Grady worked with different sets of instruments in this piece, opposed to the first and last track.
On side B of the LP we find just one piece which is again more in the vain of the first piece. The free character playing of gongs or metal pipes seems to be the case here. Again the music plays with reverberations of sound, which create phasing patters. Though, due to the different sound source used you get a complete different outcome than in the first piece. The sound is much more like that of church bells. The piece doesn't really seem to develop. Both in sound color and composition there isn't much progression, only in the volume there are some changes. The rest just stays as it is. Because of this the 20 minutes are actually way too long. When you are reading a book or something like that it doesn't really matter, but as soon as you start to listen intensely it can become really boring.
Footpaths and Trade Routes is a nice album to hear so once in a while but nothing to lay on the turntable to often. While the sounds are beautiful the release as a whole is kind of directionless. This is a shame, considering that a lot of gamelan music is really rich and really happening. With this we can say that this is definitely not the best release on ini.itu. Nonetheless for those who are looking for a combination of traditional folk music from Indonesia and modern avant-garde it might be exactly what you are looking for. |
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