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PaperclipPerfector  20d ago (text post)   2321 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 13, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Sorry for the late response! I had a lot going on and it kind of fell by the wayside.

Gamelan is very nice. There's a few regional types extant in Indonesia; Balinese and Javanese are the major traditions. The one you posted (and the one that seems to have gotten popular among Western listeners) is the Balinese style, which I suppose is understandable since Bali was the first Indonesian island to be developed for international travellers, and it is fantastic - but I would actually say the Javanese style is the more elegant and delicate of the two.

I see! I was vaguely aware there were different styles, but never succeeded at finding good videos where you could actually see the players play.

My first introduction to Gamelan actually came from a 1993 video game soundtrack, which had several Gamelan-inspired songs going with its more generally Austronesian flavour.

How was Singapore, by the way?

Long story, but I enjoyed it a lot. Contra what everyone had been saying, there was easily enough to do for 10 days, even though I didn't manage to get out to Malaysia (I got close to one day but Shuttle Tebrau tickets sold out just as I was fighting the website, and the locals scared me off the other route by talking about 3h immigration queues). The food was great, highlights included climbing into the Labrador AMTB battery (was that your rec originally? It seems like it was open to tourists for a while but now it's just a ruin sitting in a patch of forest) and the NUS Gamelan club's weekly jam session (seemingly open to all). At the Asian Civilisations Museum, they had a special exhibit on games. I hyperfixated on the design of the Cherki cards I saw there and went on a wild goose chase to try to get a set, only to find that nobody in SG sold them anymore; in the end one of the local friends ordered it online from an Indonesian supplier.

As long as it's sufficiently local and hasn't been globalised in the same way that anime has (Nintendo would not be an acceptable answer either), Japanoposting is fine. I see your Shiina Ringo, and raise you another obscure Japanese artist called JAGATARA, here's an exceptionally funky album from that band I particularly enjoy.

Shiina Ringo is not particularly obscure, just popular with a very different crowd from the usual ACG circuit. The JAGATARA album is fun, listening to it now. You should check out other Shiina Ringo songs (ex., ex.) as well, if you don't know them yet.

Mainland Chinese media

I unfortunately didn't vibe with the RE-TROS songs you linked, but they remind me a little bit of this German techno(?) album.

In terms of more mainstream mainland songs I know, there's a lot of TV singing competition vocal fireworks stuff some of which is pretty good, e.g. Zhou Shen. For a while, Youtube would also shove songs by Lexie Liu in my face every so often, some of which are relatively catchy. The one I linked stayed in my memory for its fairly authentic use of European crazy girl woo as source material.

A decent Taiwanese song that was linked to me. I also enjoy this A-Mei depresso.

Lastly, let me shill this Hungarian duo I got to see live a while back. They self-identify as jazz, but it's really more some sort of jazzy techno with vaguely Japanese melodic influences.

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