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Gongland
by Forrest Fang
Projekt records, 2000
http://www.projekt.com

	Forrest Fang is a Chinese-American musician who brings his expertise with
various Oriental modes and instruments to the realm of electronic music. He
mixes this timeless Asian material with state-of-the-art technology,
including the use of fractal mathematics to shape his tones, rhythms, and
melodies. Gongland follows along the same lines as his 1999 album
The Blind Messenger, but it is much more explicitly Asian-inspired
than Messenger. Fang depends throughout on the pentatonic tuning
which is so characteristically Far Eastern, though he also intersperses
moments of Western melodic scales and arpeggios. In many of the pieces, Fang
uses the cascading metallic sounds of the Indonesian gamelan.
	This is a more conservative album than Blind Messenger. There are no
noisy aggressive forays into techno-industrial sound, no heavy drumming, and
the pace is slower than that of the previous album. The moments that stand
out in Gongland tend to be beautiful and delicate rather than loud
and powerful. Among the best tracks, characterized (like subatomic quarks!)
with “charm” and “strangeness” are track 4, “Chaos Gamelan,” track 9, the
sparkling “Microna,” and the Java-driven track 8, “Sonosphere,” which in its
extended length and complexity is my favorite piece on the album.
Gongland also features some very slow, nocturnal meditations such as
track 5, “4 AM,” track 10, “Tiger Balm,” and the longer track 11,
“Sierpinski Plain” (named after a famous mathematician who dealt in
fractals).
In general this is a subtle, contemplative set, imbued with a philosophical
and abstract quality. Sometimes, because of Fang’s reliance on mathematical
formulas to generate many of his melodies and rhythms, it can be a bit too
abstract, and I feel that it loses some inventiveness and spontaneity
because of this. This album is refined, thoughtful, and elegant, but I miss
Forrest Fang’s explorations of the jagged electronic edge.

HMGS rating: 7 out of 10

12/9/00




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