Dreaming In Gamelan is a brand new launch by musicians Invoice Brennan and Andy McNeill, who mix their experience — each as composers, McNeill at house within the studio, and Brennan as a very long time member of Evergreen Membership Modern Gamelan — on the album.
The album, an unbiased launch that drops October 24, is the end result of a journey that noticed it start because the rating for a documentary on the CBC community again in 2001. Subsequently, a set of music from the movie noticed a reside efficiency in Massey Corridor. The fabric has advanced and developed throughout the ensuing interval, and combines the traditions of West Javanese music with up to date experimental, jazz, and ambient modes.
Canadian electrical violinist Hugh Marsh provides to the instrumental combine, and he additionally co-composed one of many tracks with the duo. Marsh has beforehand labored with innovators like Jon Hassell, Joseph Shabason, and Loreena McKennitt.
Dwell instrumentation and electronica come collectively on this distinctive music.
We spoke to Invoice Brennan and Andy McNeill in regards to the venture.
Invoice Brennan & Andy McNeill: The Interview
“I used to be approached to do that rating for this documentary,” Andy remembers.
The producer had seen Invoice performing with Evergreen, and thought it will make for an attention-grabbing soundtrack for a documentary on nanotechnology and biotech.
McNeill says arising with the monitor titles, corresponding to Tunnels of Gentle, Morning Beams, Cloud Forest, and the title monitor, Dreaming in Gamelan, impressed a type of overarching narrative for the album over time.
“This complete journey concept, and dreaming,” Andy says, “the cinematic components are simply inherent to my method — a number of textures, a number of area.”
“A variety of what we do,” Brennan says, “I’d say Andy extra so, is on this planet of telling a narrative via music.” He notes that’s in distinction to telling the story by way of lyrics.
“It being a documentary about the way forward for drugs and the way the business was wanting at the moment,” he says, “[it was] ahead pondering.”
He loved the thought of writing inside that idea, to reinforce the concepts introduced, but additionally depart room for individuals to pursue their very own ideas about what it means.
Creating the Music
“I feel that the items began taking over their very own lives within the years afterwards,” McNeill says. “Some are fairly intact from the unique.” Different tracks, a lot of which started as brief cues of a minute or two for the motion on display, have been expanded and additional developed. “Grooves added.”
“The primary session, we had per week along with the devices, Invoice and I, improvising,” Andy says.
The violin was added later, together with over dubs.
“Definitely, a few of our items got here from improvising, some have been via composed,” Brennan says.
As he factors out, Indonesian music usually incorporates improvisation in a means that’s not in contrast to the practices of Western jazz; i.e. there’s a construction, with particular sections the place musicians improvise. The improvisation itself sometimes follows a conventional sample.
“The classes that we had have been based mostly on improvisation,” Invoice provides.
Style?
Between them, the pair play quite a lot of conventional and trendy devices, together with boning, panerus, kendang, jengglong, peking, gongs, percussion, keyboards, and vibraphone, with McNeill including electronics, bass, and numerous therapies.
“What are we going to name this? I like that,” Andy says. “[It’s] seemingly uncategorizable. Individuals with open ears, it’s for them.”
“I consider this music as being in that ambient world,” Brennan presents.
The digital and acoustic components mix collectively seamlessly.
“I feel possibly the rationale that it connects effectively is that the electronics are constructed across the acoustic components,” Andy provides.
He explains that the ultimate model contains granular processed variations of the unique recordings, moderately than added layers of synthesizer. The final monitor, Reverie, is a 10-minute lengthy ambient journey.
“It’s totally fabricated from every little thing you’ve heard earlier than,” MacNeill explains, “folded, manipulated, processed. On a second pay attention, you’d in all probability choose up on these issues.”
“It turns into a part of the composition. It’s a compositional instrument,” Brennan says. “I don’t suppose it’s essentially an addition.”
Dreaming In Gamelan by Invoice Brennan and Andy McNeill
Why Launch the Music Now?
“I feel we all the time felt after recording it, that there’s one thing right here,” Brennan says. That’s what led for the reside efficiency at Massey Corridor by the Evergreen Membership.
They started to consider the music past the thought of a soundtrack.
“A set of effectively shaped items of music,” Invoice calls it. Throughout the 20 years that the music was brewing, Brennan moved to the east coast. It was a matter of merely having the time this previous summer season to work on it.
The music’s lengthy growth has some benefits, as McNeill factors out.
“Having the posh of years to hearken to them, and work out what to do to make them totally developed,” Andy says, “the music is the higher for it.”
The venture has additionally bolstered their bonds as musical collaborators.
“We’re searching for one other excuse to work collectively,” McNeill says. “It’s undoubtedly a gathering of two worlds, and two minds.”
“I realized lots from Andy working collectively,” Brennan provides.
- Dreaming in Gamelan can be obtainable on October 24, 2025; you’ll be able to preorder/stream/purchase [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 many years, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
