Chasing the Phantom

Abstract

Balinese composer Dewa Alit (b. 1973) splits his time between home and abroad, absorbing many kinds of music. His latest gamelan work (2016) is Ngejuk Memedi , from the Balinese ngejuk , to chase, and memedi , a feared phantom of the Balinese unseen world that takes human form. It animates his evolving desire for a “broader conception of what gamelan is, one based on its relationship to other cultures” (Alit in Tenzer 2011, 134), while submitting to the phantom-like elusiveness of the goal. In analyzing part of Ngejuk Memedi , this article argues for an emergent musical supra-culturalism embedded in innovative rhythmic practices. In Alit’s case, three strata of metrically dissonant parts are superposed in a continually changing relationship. His procedures are suggestive of those of other contemporary musicians from around the globe, whose kinship with Alit comes into focus once one delimits the intellectual and aesthetic desiderata they have challenged themselves to explore. Often notated by composers but transmitted and performed orally, such music is highly conceptual but deeply embodied in felt groove. Its signature element is the juxtaposition or layering of complex, asymmetrical periodicities that are rare or unknown in source traditions, but trace to ideas circulating from African, Indian, Western and other art musics that have become common currency. In these intersecting senses, they comprise a new phenomenon.