Bali
In Japan and China, New Age music is often produced with the same attitude they've applied to robotic manufacturing--and it sounds like it. The artists are faceless and the music is generic. But a label called Pacific Moon may be changing that. Jalan Jalan'sBaliis one of the most haunting albums of the year. This Japanese group takes the sounds of the Balinese gamelan (although the slow cadences are more Javanese), and with pianos, flutes, small percussion, and environmental sounds, they loop melodic cycles into a deftly subtle fabric. There's an austerity and simplicity of form that owes much to Brian Eno'sMusic for Airports, with its sense of elegiac repose and resigned melancholy, particularly evidenced in tracks like "Firefly Sanctuary." The canon form, in which most of these pieces are written, and its stately pace make this music seem like it could go on forever, and you wish it would.--John Diliberto