just picked up a used copy of "music from the morning of the world: the
balinese gamelan & ketjak: the ramayana monkey chant" on
nonesuch/explorer. excellent stuff - it was recorded in 1966 and features
some great playing. I wasn't sure when I picked it up what the monkey
chant would be, but my suspicions were correct. if you've seen the movie
'baraka,' [I think] there's a sequence with a group of people seated in
concentric circles, chanting rapidly and moving their arms in the air.
that's the monkey chant - on the CD a 22 minute recording of its enactment
of the ramayana, monkey hordes rushing to aid prince rama in his battle
with the evil king ravana. "complete with monkey chorus"
in general the balinese gamelan music is much faster than that of java or
sumatra, but local styles of music vary widely across the population of
213+ million on 6000 islands as do the various classical and folk musics.
thus the 17 so-far volumes of the smithsonian folkways series, all of
which are amazing, I'm sure. I only have volume 8.
there's a page of gamelan-related links at
http://www.gamelan.org/AGI/jd.websites.html
and short reviews of gamelan CDs here:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~gjvo/gamelan/gamelan_reviews.html
directory of gamelan groups in the US, canada and europe
http://www.glue.umd.edu/~satu/gamelan/list.htm
ethan