The Mahabharata: Authentic Balinese Shadow Puppet Play Music for Meditation, Yoga & Cultural Performances

An excellent quality recording of a quartet of metallophones play some of the most intricate music you ever heard.If that's not enough of a review for you then read on...Most compilations of Balinese music have a track of gender wayang. A quartet of 'gender' playing in deliberately slightly out of tune unison, and complex interlocking patterns whereby two players combine to produce a complex ripple of notes.So if you already have such a compilation do you need this, a whole album of the stuff? Well, at first listen the tracks here might all blend into one, but enter the world of this ensemble and you'll start to pick out a lot of difference. At least one piece here which somehow conjures up a full gamelan, and the more you listen, the more variety will emerge.Couple that with the sheer sound of this disc, it's a very high quality recording capturing every nuance, and it's an essential purchase.Personally, I already have one album of shadow play music, this one Explorer Series: Bali - Music for the Shadow Play. So for me the question in this review title was already answered. Compared to the Explorer Series (Nonsuch) album this is a cleaner sounding recording, and I'd hazard a guess that some of the compositions are a more modern. As neither album is that long ( with the Explorer being LP length ) I'm far from regretting the purchase.