Bang on a Can

"Kebyar Maya" is a literal transformation of a piece for Balinese gamelan entitled "Kebyar Ding". Its melodies and abrupt tempo changes are lifted almost exactly from its model, a frame over which the new piece is constructed. What is the purpose of this? Music is a universal language only to the extent that we all misunderstand each other equally. Balinese music has great visceral appeal to western ears but is at its root from somewhere else entirely. Kebyar style originated at the turn of the century and is really unlike any other music - the rhythms are precise but nonmetrical, the formal structures deliciously disproportionate. I love kebyar, and I hear all sorts of things in it, but I don't hear what the Balinese hear. By translating the form I'm taking these surface connections for granted so that I can concentrate on the differences, bringing out or inventing things in the music which are completely foreign to Balinese music. At the same time, I impose uncomfortable restrictions on myself and my musical choices (because the music has to follow the pattern whether I want it to or not), and this induces results that are foreign to me.

In a way, this is music with no objective reality: when I hear it, I can't seperate it from its source, but the source is far less present to other listeners - what they hear is anybody's guess. There's no possibility of projecting a meaning. Thus "Kebyar Maya", an illusory kebyar. "Maya" is also Maya Beiser, who's cello, overdubbed 18 times, makes up the substance of this veil of illusion. Every sound - every gong and flute, every drum cue - was produced by her acoustic instrument with no electronic processing. --Evan Ziporyn