The Turning Gate

The Korean soundWave, Part III

The weather has been unseasonably mild in Korea this winter and has only become more pleasant in the past few weeks, hinting at the Spring soon coming. After the long quiet of Winter, Spring comes on like a seasonal jukebox – the songs of returning birds, of wind rustling new leaves, of Spring rains pitter-pattering on the earth, sidewalks and rooftops. The sounds of Spring are lovely indeed! But, just in case you’d like to drown them out, here’s a new pile of bands from The Land of the Morning Calm.

If you like what you hear here, please buy the albums from YesAsia.com or your favorite Asian music retailer.

If, in the course of this article, you see jibberish or squares in place of characters, it’s probably because I’ve written something in Hangul (the Korean alphabet), and you don’t have Asian language support installed on your computer. I’ve saved all of the MP3s with English names, so you shouldn’t have any problems accessing the files, regardless of what your computer does or does not support.

That said, Spring is a time of newness – new life, new growth, and (as Will Smith might say) new hotness. In the spirit of Spring, I kick things off with something brand spanking new:

 

The Melody

Flowers blooming. Trees budding. A crisp, morning breeze damp with the year’s first dew. The Melody sounds like the beginning of Spring.

Their self-titled debut, released this month on Pastel Music, offers 13 tracks of well-crafted, shimmery pop rock. The songs are so delightful and polished, it’s difficult to believe this is the band’s first album. The songs are melodious and full of head-bobbing, foot-tapping goodness. Singer, , charms on every song. The album’s instrumentation is varied and never overdone. And the songs themselves are full of flourishes and bear a quality of lightness.

In “Remember”, various strings bob and weave throughout the song as if a flight of playful birds performing aerial acrobatics. Aptly named, it’s a song you’re sure to remember; it’s catchy as hell and really gets stuck in your head.

“Love Box” begins sparsely with acoustic guitar and vocals, but layers on the sound midway through, bringing in pianos, strings and other instruments for a subdued beauty of a song.

The album is full of lovely songs, and the difficult task I’ve been toiling over has been in selecting just two to represent the entire album.

The only complaints I find with the album are minor: , when she sings in English, has a somewhat Konglishy pronunciation; and while the album sounds well accomplished, there’s nothing here to innovate. Slight quibbles aside, however, The Melody’s debut is a fine album and worth your attention. I’ll be seeing them in concert with Humming Urban Stereo next month, and I’m very much looking forward to the show.

Right-click to download Remember.

Right-click to download Love Box (English ver.).

 

Oldfish 올드피쉬

I couldn’t find a photo of Oldfish, so you’ll have to contend with his paper robots instead. Furthermore, like so many of Korea’s old and busted websites, his website only works in Internet Explorer (Korean web surfing, thy name is frustration). Luckily, his music is much better than his web presence.

Oldfish is a one man band, and that one man is Soda.

Ahem.

Vocals, keyboards and programming comprise foundation on which Oldfish builds, though a fellow called Kihong sometimes helps out with an acoustic guitar. Pastel’s line on Oldfish reads like this:

With his generous and relaxed electronic music, Oldfish has been giving a fresh spur to the indie scene in South Korea. He released his debut album ‘room. ing’ in 2005 after three successful EP releases. The new but, ‘old’ debut album is steadily becoming popular with the public and receiving great praise from local media.

That blurb comes from the Siamese Flowers compilation Pastel released a while back to showcase some of its bands.

More recently, Oldfish has released his second LP, Acoustic Movement, featuring the same paper robots that earlier appeared on room. ing. In short, it’s a damn fine album if you dig indie electro-pop.

From Acoustic Movement, “Movement” is an upbeat number that recalls the new-wave synth sensation of so many 80s smash hits.

From room. ing, “Dot-Dot-Dot” is another upbeat, synth and acoustic guitar track. Also quite good.

Right-click to download Movement.

Right-click to download Dot-Dot-Dot.

Watch the Dot-Dot-Dot video on YouTube.

 

Lucid Fall 루시드 폴

Cho Yun Suk, a.k.a. Lucid Fall, is a singer-songwriter producing subdued, acoustic music based primarily on a combination of guitar, piano and vocals. His songs are generally very quiet and very pretty, and he’s one of my girlfriend’s favorite Korean singers.

Since 1998, Lucid Fall has released six albums, the most recent of which is 2007’s live double album, The Light of Songs – a beautiful collection of performances.

In 2002, Lucid Fall created the original soundtrack for the film L’abri – Bus Stop in English. Earip performed vocals on two songs for the album.

Unfortunately, additional information in English is scarce.

The recording of “보이나요?” below comes from The Light of Songs album. The song’s original version appeared on Lucid Fall’s 2005 album, 오, 사랑 (translates as “oh, love”, though I think the official English title is “o amor”).

The recording of “삼청동” (Samcheong-dong) below appears on o amor, though a live version is also available on The Light of Songs. It’s one of my girlfriend’s favorite Lucid Fall songs. Samcheong-dong is an area in Seoul, near Insadong and Gyeongbok Palace, where Korea’s kings once lived. Samcheong-dong is full of cafes, restaurants, shops and art galleries. It’s a very trendy and attractive area. I’ve taken a lot photographs there; you can find them on my photoblog, Project Seoul.

Right-click to download 보이나요?.

Right-click to download 삼청동 (Samcheong-dong).

 

Plastic People 플라스틱 피플

Folk, Ya! is the best album that indie folk-rockers Plastic People have ever made. The songs are full of great hooks, and hearken back to the rock of the mid-to-late 90s. And as an added bonus, Folk, Ya! comes packaged with the band’s self-titled EP, which was quite a rare find until this release.

Sometimes quiet, sometimes rollicking, Folk, Ya! is basically a lot of fun and occasionally conjures memories of bands like That Dog or Teenage Fanclub. These guys would have been right at home on Geffen about ten years ago. Since releasing Folk, Ya!, they’ve been playing shows in small clubs and bars around Seoul, none of which I’ve known about until after the fact. They’re a band I’d seriously enjoy seeing.

Songbags of the Plastic People, the band’s debut LP, was dreamy and tended towards lazy tempos. Parts of Folk, Ya! follow this mold, but other parts pick up the pace. It’s nice to see the band growing and willing to rock.

Right-click to download Folk, Ya!‘s 두근거림 and Tomorrow Tomorrow.

Right-click to download 책에서 발견한 그녀 from Songbags of the Plastic People.

 

Windy City

When thinking of Korean music, or music from anywhere in Asia, reggae probably isn’t the first genre that leaps to mind. But if reggae is your thing, then Windy City may be the band to change the way you think.

Operating under the slogan “Love, Power and Unity” and a prime directive of Psychodeliciousness, Windy City is Seoul’s foremost funk and reggae outfit. They sounds like they’re from an island, not a peninsula.

But I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know a damn thing about reggae. It’s usually not my bag. But Windy City is good, very good, and I’m sure the music shall speak for itself. Listen to the Wind:

Right-click to download Love Supreme.

Right-click to download Havanero.

Right-click to download Meditation On Earth (Dub).

For additional listening, check out Windy City’s MySpace page. You can also view Windy City videos on YouTube.

In the “Artwork” section of Windy City’s Official Website, you can also download several music videos and some audio outtakes.

 

And that wraps up another edition of The Korean soundWave. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to check out the first two entries:

The Korean soundWave, Part I

The Korean soundWave, Part II

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