Kudu Bisa Kudu

The French drummer Guigou Chenevier was a founder member of the prog-punk-jazz pioneers Etron Fou Leloublan in 1973. Here he leads a rock line-up of drums, bass, keyboards, two guitars and a lead vocalist, alongside a seven-piece gamelan ensemble from Java. An extraordinarily natural, organic balance ensues, with neither aspect being compromised. Balungan were hyper-rehearsed for this live show in Cavaillon, France (2017), captured with a palpable smoulder of excitement on this recording. There are multiple vocals, but Laurent Frick handles the lead lines, successfully negotiating the complex Indonesian patterns.

Balungan is the Javanese word for ‘Skeleton,’ but this is a fully-muscled ensemble, with deranged fuzz guitar solos, chunky electric basslines, rippling metallophone action and sensuous wooden flute interludes. The keyboards mimic the gamelan progressions, adding emphasis, and a big bass gong occasionally delineates crucial turning points. The stately pace of ‘Wewarah’ places the gamelan to the fore, while ‘XGY14’ has a strange whiff of French music hall, with severe electronic vocal effects, a gamelan sway, and a kind of Alice Cooper nightmare climax. ‘Beteng’ awakens slowly, with lurking, low vocals and a pricking guitar figure, its pace remaining measured for almost 12 minutes. This scintillating performance illustrates the ultimate strategy for uniting traditional Indonesian gamelan and crazed French rock, certainly not a regular occurrence.