My Korean-Indie slot of the week

ChrisMusic

Oh yes, I am a regular visitor here, always look forward to your music choices equalsql.

I thought the Park Ji Yoon video had some beautifully soft erotic imagery, surreal too, very different visuals and haunting music in "Tree of Life".

These always brighten my day, and life my spirits - thanks

equalsql

Cheers for the support @ChrisMusic

This week I present a couple of videos by a classic K-Indie trio called 'Swing Chair' 스윙체어  (  스 'Suh'   윙 'Wing'  체 'Chae'  어 'Oh' )
The first is a lively recording of their song 'Smile Again' videoed  in another of Seoul's quirky little coffee shops and the second is an outdoor recorded session of their song 'Hallyu Star' where they have employed a bassist to help fill the track. Anyone who has been following this thread should know that 'Hallyu' means 'The Korean New Wave' and encapsulates the flood of dramas and music that have become such a major export for the country. 

The band have a strong presence on You-tube but to date I have not been able to find our much information about them but I hope you enjoy these two tracks.

 

equalsql

This week is dedicated to just about the most famous (hottest?) star on the Korean pop music scene at the moment.

She is a 20 year old singer-guitarist called simply 'IU'  pronounced 'eye-ooh' Her real name is Lee Ji-eun  이지은  ( I (as in 'it')   지 Ji   은 unn).

She was discovered whilst still at school and is a fine singer and guitarist in her own right.  However she is currently being promoted/exploited/moulded by the Korean pop music industry and her work schedule is so busy in that she is both involved in music and fashion production but also started recently appearing in K-Drama series that are notorious for their punishing hours where shows are delivered with just minutes to spare. It's a miracle that she hasn't collapsed. 

Her roots are in acoustic music (Crafter even built a custom electro-acoustic guitar for her with her initials set in at the 12th fret)
So I thought this would be a chance to showcase the simpler side of her life. Incidental she is a huge fan of Corinne Baily-Rae and appeared on stage as a guest when Corinne toured South Korea recently. 

As she has gotten older she has started to try and gain control of some of the music she is performing and trying to feed her own material into the mix.

The first video shows her working on her own song 'Peach'  whilst visiting Venice.
The second video shows her practising a song  called 'Riding The Train'. In this video you get a real sense of just how talented this girl is..although the sound quality is a bit poor.

Finally in the third video we see the full studio production that was aired for above 'Riding The Train' song.

equalsql

Just as an aside..cos it made me laugh so much.
The Korean's appear to have mastered the fine art of visual double entendres.
Discovered by my daughter who was crying with laughter at the sheer number of innuendos in this hilarious video..

equalsql

In this weeks episode I present a K-Indie singer called  'Yozoh' (  요조  pronounced 'Yoh-Ju')  She is signed to an independent label and is one of those rare performers whose output is never predictable. She moves between styles and genres effortlessly and her independent creativity reminds me of Kate Bush.

The first track shown here is her song '춤 'chuum'  (Dance) which is an astonishing musical sound-scape, very experimental but it works to stunning effect.

The second track is a more conventional alternative rock track.. but still has a unique character to it.
Sit back and enjoys the talents of one of Korea's most original and  inventive artists...

equalsql

Yep, this thread is back from it's Easter hiatus and this week we kick of with the Korean indie band 'Mate' 메이트
Pronounced: 메 Mae  이 i as in 'it'  트  Tuh

They are probably Korea's most successful indie soft-rock band, having debuted in 2009 to almost instant success.
They do tend to have a formulaic approach to their songs, starting them soft and then building up into a crescendo.
However they are fine musicians and singers and when they get it right the results are impressive.

The first track shown here is called 왜 'wae' which translates as 'Why" and features a particularly nice guitar solo at about 3 minutes in which powers up via some nice feedback into an impressive finish.

The second track shows them in concert playing their track "Fly To The Sky"  하늘을 날아, again using a similar song construction.

xHymnal

ah mate thanks for taking the time to do this thread. Thoroughly enjoyable. 

equalsql

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this thread, but as Christmas is coming and we have a fair number of new members I've decided to ressurect for a while and see how it goes.

So to kick off this 'second coming' I've decided to revisit a favourite a favourite K-Indie band of mine : Dear Cloud ( 디어 클라우드)  
(Pronounced   디 Di   어 Ao   클 Kuul   라 La   우 Uh   드 Du) . 

These two videos present the band in two completely different lights.. The first video of their song 'Lip' is pretty dark stuff  and somewhat disturbing whilst the second for the song  "It's For You" is the complete opposite with a lovely summer-time feel.. 
It's quite a contrast 

mudslide73

Thanks for reviving this mate.. you know I'm a fan.

ChrisMusic

*SO* nice to see this back   

I will be looking forward to watching the two new videos all day now.

No time now...    so...

It is always good to have something to look forward to, thanks...

equalsql

This week's choice looks at the Korean 'electronic' indie scene.
Perhaps it's the fact that South Korea is a culture truly immersed in the most modern technologies, in an almost cyberpunk manner, that cause them to produce some of the most inventive music of this idiom that I have encountered. They're also not afraid to mix it up with more tradition forms like acid-jazz or Latin-American.

A good exponent of this is a musician called  'Haihm  하임  Pronounced ( 하 )  "Hae'   ( 임 ) 'Imm'   
She is a classically trained pianist who has written songs for and worked with a fair number of Korean artists, but also write, produces and mixes her own material.

In the first video, she is seen working with a vocal group called 'Symmetry' and what starts out as a conventional soul/acid-jazz track cleverly drifts into a more electronic groove and then back out to the original theme. It's impressive stuff.

 In this second video is a single from her EP: 'Point 9' which was release this summer. The track is called '울지 않는 새' which loosely translate as 'The birds are not singing/crying'. This is 'tech-heavy' (especially as it really kicks in at the 3 min mark) and extremely well executed. 

CHRISB50

@equalsql I'm intrigued. Why the fascination with Korean music? How did you get into it?

equalsql

Hi @CHRISB50.  It all started with the language.  I was introduced to it by a student that I once worked with on a MOD funded PhD project. His father was English and his mother Korean, so he spoke both languages fluently. At the time the language was completely alien to my ears, and I assumed the written form was going to be the same..turns out I was wrong. The writtem form: Hangul, is one of the most logical and simple systems of writing ever invented (and it was specifically invented) . The language is phonetic  written as spoken, and students can learn how to read and talk Hangul in a couple of weeks..however the language syntax is very tricky so it can take along time to be able to construct sentences. 

To try and learn the language I was recommended to watch some Korean drama so that I could get used to how it sounded and understand the different honorifics used..cos there are a lot!  Whilst watching some of these dramas, I noticed that some of the soundtracks had music that was extremely well written and produced, which got me into trying to hunt down who these musicians were. The upshot being I found a world of brilliant music that was unknown outside of SK and I felt it needed to be shared to a western audience. Many of the artists take a DIY approach to their recording and videos which is really refreshing too. 

I've not seen much stuff in the West that really matches it..the nearest is perhaps 'Anna Sun'  by 'Walk The Moon'

This stuff is being written and produced by really skilled musicians who cannot get contracts with the large labels who spoonfeed sugary K-Pop on to the Asian market, so I'm doing my bit to try and get them noticed over here.

equalsql

Not posted anything on here for a while.. but what the heck.. I do love 'Dear Cloud' and I thinks they're singer Nine9 is just wonderful...so here's another great track from them called 'Take The Air'