- Colin McPhee: The records had been made in Bali, and the clear, metallic sounds of the music were like the stirring of a thousand bells, delicate, confused, with a sensuous charm, a mystery that was quite overpowering. I begged to keep the records for a few days, and as I played them over and over I became more and more enchanted with the sound... How had this music come about? Above all, how was it possible, in this late day, for such a music to have been able to survive? I returned the records, but I could not forget them. The effect of the music was deeper than I had suspected, my imagination took fire, and the day came when I determined to make a trip to the East to see for myself.
- Colin McPhee: The sound of the music seemed forever in the air. People sang in the fields or in the streams as they bathed. From behind village walls rose the sounds of flutes and cymbals as invisible musicians rehearsed at al hours.
- Colin McPhee: One afternoon, as I idled away the time on one of the river boats along the Siene, I realized with sudden clearness that they only thing in the world I wanted to was to return to Bali and make as complete a record as I could of the music.
- Douglas Young: I think when we began to play the music, it became immediately obvious that it was quite unlike anything that we had ever encountered before. Although it had this Balinese element, it was clearly derived from McPhee's knowledge of Balinese music. The whole thing was transformed by the fact that it was being played on Western instruments and by a sort of alchemy that he overlays the Balinese originals with.
- Imade Bandem: When composing Balinese music, Balinese composers usually do it by instinct, by experience without writing any pieces. Balinese music is an aural tradition. They learn how to study music from generation to generation without any writing, or without any notes, but we have done now at the Academy, we are already learning notation, Balinese notation, and Western notation. So there is a pull now toward new ideas, a new way of composing music in Bali.