1 In A 100

Top 100 albums of me boy.

100
Various Artists - Gamelans De Bali
1964
Gamelan
Best Tracks; Le Gangdrung - 'Ouverture et Danse' and 'Air Sur le 3 Monde #2', Gamelon Djogéd Bungbung - 'Danse de L'eventail', Gamelan Saron - 'Musique Funéraire Pour le Lavement du Corps'.

And we'll start quietly, with this gentle pitter patter, chiming, smiling, beguiling. With this restless rattle and clang of percussion they call gamelan; a ancient music from Indonesia. It predominantly consists of melodic/percussive xylophone type instruments, but there's also strings, flutes  and voice. This is a lovely collection of recordings from various gamelan ensembles made in the early sixties. The first three tracks by the Gamelan Selunding sound like some kind of medieval reinterpretation of soundtracks from 80s sci-fi films. The two tracks by Le Gambuh feature bamboo flutes which sound like ghosts turning over furniture whilst storming through an ancient temple. Gamelan Saron's twelve minute 'Musique Funéraire Pour le Lavement du Corps' chugs gently along with its chocky - blocky metallophones, stopping occasionally for the heavy thump of a drum, a tranquil train journey set towards that moment in the past you try to revisit but never quite reach.

The best tracks are the numbers towards the end of the LP. The L'Angklung and Le Gangdrung tracks are played with a cheerful intensity, dance numbers that startle with their effortless syncopation, complexity, chirpy melodies and percussion. 'Ouverture et Danse' in particular is an unrestrained, rickety joy, shuffling like a quite storm until the clouds part and xylophones appear and drop softly like rain on the dry earth.

My favourite gamelan compilation, and if you're unfamiliar with the genre there's enough fun and variety here to make it a good starting point.

Big Screen - Where Is the Friends Home?

1987
Iran

A boy accidentally takes a freinds schoolbook home and homework has to be done for the morning, so he must return it so his pal doesn't get a rollicking from their strict teacher. And nothing else really happens. But it's the minimalist nature of this film that makes it so absorbing. I took great comfort and delight last night whilst sitting with my feet up, hot chocolate in hand, watching as the camera painstakingly follows every movement of Ahmed (the boy) as he feeds and rocks a baby sibling as he attempts to explain to his mum several times that he must go and return the book to his friend, but like all the adults here, she's not listening and mutters, "No you can't go out. Finish your homework. Rock the baby", and the camera lingers on her as she thoroughly washes some clothes in a sink and wrings them out firmly as dogs bark and horseshoes clutter in the background of this gorgeous pastoral town of washed out white slums walls. It's very much from a kids perspective as we feel their frustration at the condescending, simple minded adults. There's a quite commaraderie among the children of the town and this is caught in a nice scene outside the school as a kid hurts his knee and is lead to a hose by his friend who tenderly rubs the water onto his leg, without a single word between them. The cast are not trained actors and you feel a warmth and humanity in their conversations, even when the adults speak to each other. There's a realism there that makes you care about the mundane happenings in their lives.

One of the best moments is when the boy sees his mother distracted and seizing the moment he's been waiting so long for, he grabs the schoolbook and makes a dash . . . only to realise his picked up the wrong book again and cautiously returns for the right one. Ahmed finally meets someone who's willing to listen to him, a nice old man who speaks of the windows he once fitted around the town which are now being replaced and of the family that have left him for the city. It's charming stuff and the boy listens respectably.

The biggest star of the film for me was Iran itself, my foreign eyes getting a rare glimpse into this world. The town of Koker looks like some beautiful medieval labyrinth of alleys, stairwells and underpasses that, as night approaches and a strong wind gathers, becomes quite a creepy place. Ahmed doesn't return the book in the end as he became too frightened. But he completes his friends homework himself and what we are left with is a simple, charming tale of friendship.

Moribund Ball of Dregs

It ain't so bad you know, lying there in the back garden during peak summer on that awkwardly unfolded chair which nearly flips you over backwards whenever you sit up in it. You can hear the snap and sizzle of Mr Ramblebottom's BBQ next door, as smoke swells and swirls over the fence and, lo! what is that? Rambles has some music playing! I never knew he had it in him the drab old square! But what is this joyful sound and sunburst? It's certainly not Pink Floyd. Why this moribund ball of dregs might be worth saving after all!

The sound of some lazy vibraphone patter mingles with the smell of burning delicious fat and you look up to an aeroplane shooting streaks of white into the cloudless blue and for that one fleshy moment you're locked inside that scratchy reggae groove, hands as light as wisps of smoke, hungry, on fire. There are wrens and magpies and alders and aspens and you are not separate. You are soil you are silicon you are stone. You are God. You are swine that's been sweating in the same t-shirt for three days. What joy! What a dreadful musky stench.

You see a wood pigeon shi . . . . AHHHHHHH! A fly! You flip over backwards from the chair and spill some lemonade up your leg and you curse and compose yourself as the fly decides to take a swim in the glass of severely lacking lemonade. What would Mr Ramblebottom think? He's scratching his bum and nodding at his beer can. I think I got way with it. Ah, bless him and his gluttony. Then the buttery fingers of the sun creep up and around your neck whilst a passing breeze caresses your cheeks and you relax and drink the lemonade anyway. Such a treacherous life dear English summer!



But instead you're in a freezing cold flat with dead spider guts on the walls listening to some mildly irritating elevator music. In Croydon.