Bill Brennan & Andy McNeill - Dreaming In Gamelan [self-released album]

Put out on the circuit on October 24th, 2k25 by the respective musicians as a self-released album affair is "Dreaming In Gamelan", the new - obviously... - Gamelan-focused one-off album affair cooked up by Canadian artists and composers Bill Brennan and Andy McNeill. Over the course of ten pieces and a total runtime of approx. 39 minutes the duo takes on and provides a new and personal angle on West Javanese Gamelan music rooted in a shared compositional effort from a quarter of a century ago when the two worked on the score for Carol Moore-Ede's documentary 'Surgeons Of The Future'. Revisiting and reworking these initial recordings with modern techniques, re-editing and re-arranging them whilst adding further electronic treatments and overdubs including contributions on violin by Toronto-based Hugh Marsh reshapes the initial score works into a chiming, hovering and ever floating sonic dreamstate, a somewhat surreal fever dream exploring a realm located in between the overlapping spaces of Ambient X New Age, World Music and the shimmering yet slightly pastel tones of Vaporwave aesthetics as well as digital rabbitholes to be explored on abandoned Tumblr blogs, with cuts like "Morning Beams" touching base with early morning ChillOut dancefloors despite an obvious absence of percussive rhythms whereas the subsequent "Cloud Forest" indulges in solemn, inward-looking minimalism before "Temple" brings forward a slightly meditative vibe backed by additionally layered percussions and "Reverie" rounds things off with a 10+ minutes lasting trip into classic, yet stripped down Ambient / Deep Listening Music territories with a well nocturnal twist just to name a few. A most beautiful album, this. Go check!