Lost in Time: Guruh Gipsy – Guruh Gipsy

Style: classic British-inspired progressive rock meets Balinese and Javanese progressive folkrock (clean vocals)
Review by: Tim
Country: Indonesia
Release date: 1977

The birth of progressive rock occurred near the end of the 1960s and the range of its influence should not be understated. Already in the 1970s and 1980s the prog movement inspired many musicians all over the globe – as not everyone might know, this was not at all limited to the western world. In a multitude of western and non-western countries alike bands attempted to bridge the gap between local and global influences. The Spanish Iceberg‘s flamenco fusion, the Slovenian (then Yugoslavian) Begnagrad‘s avant-garde Balkan folkrock, the Chilean Los Jaivas‘ Andes prog, the Indian Ananda Shankar‘s raga rock, and the Turkish Barış Manço‘s Anatolian rock are all excellent examples of innovations in this field. One of my absolute favorites in this vein, however, is the Indonesian Guruh Gipsy‘s self-titled album from 1977, that was built on a foundation of both the new British sound of those days and Balinese and Javanese gamelan music, a traditional music style often associated with Indonesian ceremonies.

While this was not the first gamelan prog album ever – that honor goes to Harry Roesli‘s fantastic 1976 album Titik Api – the release of Guruh Gipsy was certainly an innovation. Whereas Roesli‘s approach was to ‘modernize’ traditional Indonesian songs by adding western drums and electric guitars, Guruh Gipsy‘s self-titled cassette (as that format was favored over LPs in Indonesia at the time) contains several progressive compositions that fuse influences from east and west into one. This approach was the brainchild of the band Gipsy in association with Guruh Sukarnoputra, son of Indonesia’s first president Sukarno. Allegedly the one-hour-long album took sixteen months to record, as combining the western and Indonesian music systems as well as financing the independent release was a lot of effort. The result, however, easily paid off, as a timeless classic was born.

So about the music itself: the album opens with the epic over-15-minutes-long “Indonesia Maharddika” (Independent Indonesia) – with the title and political context in mind it should come as no surprise that this might well be one of the happiest prog songs that you’ve heard in a while. However, happy certainly doesn’t equal simple here: an organ- and synth-heavy opening section that sounds inspired by British prog acts like Emerson Lake and Palmer switches to a drumless gamelan-and-singing section before the three minute mark, only to pick up the drums again at six minutes. The amazing thing is that the different instruments and genres flow seamlessly into each other (spoiler: they do for the entire album). Then, nine minutes in, by the time the listener might already have lost count of the amount of electric guitar and synth solos, the most epic part of the song kicks in. Polyphone background singing and combines with soloing like it’s a relay race, with even multiple solos at once by the very end.

After this point, the album veers away from many western prog fans’ comfort zone. The sound becomes less British (albeit the album doesn’t get any less progressive), but in my humble opinion the album doesn’t get worse at all from this point on. Guruh Gipsy takes a more serious and mysterious turn. In the second song “Chopin Larung” (Floating Chopin) western classical music is fused with traditional Indonesian music; western drums are completely omitted. Then the album ramps up with “Barong Gundah” (The Depressed Barong), a song that could be described as gamelan prog, as a baseline of Indonesian folk ingredients is decorated with typical 70s western prog elements such as the moog, the electric guitar, and drums with a lot of fills. This is one of the moments where the fusion between west and shines the most.

The cassette’s B-side opens with the folky “Janger 1897 Saka”, a peaceful song that leans strongly towards the Indonesian side of the mix. Even though a piano is included, traditional singing by the Hutauruk Sisters and other instrumentation dominates the sound here. Nevertheless, the song structure is undeniably progressive. The darker and more aggressive B2 song “Geger Gelgel” (Commotion in Gelgel) disturbs the peace with a delightful all-in on the gamelan, which is followed by an prog rock tour de force with the gamelan at its centre. The 12-minute-long track is quite the psychedelic experience as well. The next song on the cassette, “Smaradhana” (Passion), is a short song that brings the listener back to a calmer experience with a rather Indonesian sound. The most traditional song, however, is the closing track of the album: “Sekar Ginotan” (the traditional Ginotan Composition). The Balinese gamelan ensemble I Gusti Kompyang Raka get the spotlight to close the album in opposite to how it started: with Indonesian folk instead of British prog.

All in all Guruh Gipsy does a wonderful job of combining elements that seem such an unintuitive amalgam. A lot of research was done to make the conflicting keys of Western and Indonesian music fit with each other – and even then fusing the vastly different instruments and styles into complex progressive compositions was not an easy task. But Guruh Gipsy pulled it off quite masterfully, in such a way that the end product totally makes sense. It’s amazing that it works so well and it makes you wonder why only so few bands try to walk this path. I cannot recommend this album enough to anyone even slightly open-minded to non-standard classic progressive rock!

Recommended tracks: Indonesia Maharddika, Barong Gundah, Geger Gelgel
Recommended for fans of: Emerson Lake & Palmer, Yes, Addharma, Giant Step, Harry Roesli, simakDialog, Tohpati Ethnomission
Final verdict: timeless masterpiece/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Progarchives | Wikipedia

Label: Bandcamp

Guruh Gipsy is:
– Guruh Sukarno Putra (piano, gendèr and lyrics)

Gipsy:
– Odink Nasution (guitars)
– Abadi Soesman (mini-Moog)
– Zahrun Hafni “Roni” Harahap (piano and organ)
– Christian Rahadi “Chrisye” (bass and vocals)
– Radakhrisnan “Keenan” Nasution (drums and vocals)

with:
– Aumar Naudin “Gauri” Nasution (guitar)
– Trisuci Kamal (piano)
– Hutauruk Sisters (backing vocals)
– I Gusti Kompyang Raka (Balinese gamelan ensemble)
– Orkestra RRI (orchestra section)