45 f The Korean Wave
[su:m] and Jambinai continued the Korean invasion at last year’s Womex in Cardiff. Christopher Conder meets and greets with two very different units.
T
hey call it Hallyu, the ‘Korean Wave’: the thunderclap of excitement, confidence and youth emanating from a peninsula once best known for its dividedness rather than its lead- ing technology firms and world-con- quering pop music. Korea is a country with a thriving economy, confident enough to casually drop the geographic indicator from its name and ignore the ‘mad uncle in the attic’ that is North Korea. A country whose Government is proudly supporting its most esoteric art forms on the world stage.
Like many readers, I first fell for Kore- an music after Womex 2012 when our edi- tor came back from Greece raving about the four musicians that make up the scin- tillating Geomungo Factory ( 355/56). I was part of the small, stunned audience when they performed in London in June last year and I immediately added Seoul to my ever- growing ‘must visit’ list.
The South Korean stand at Womex
2013 in Cardiff was well run with friendly staff offering a plethora of richly pack- aged CDs to enthusiastic industry types. The country had two acts showcasing on this occasion and I was lucky enough to get interviews with both.
Seo Jungmin and Park Jiha are the two women that constitute [su:m] (inci- dentally, I’m using the Korean surname- first name order here). They are an engag- ing, friendly pair to interview, laughing with me as we navigate through the odd language confusion. They met at universi- ty, having both studied traditional Korean music since their early teenage years, and decided that they wanted to do something new. “I like Korean traditional music,” Park explained to me in a quiet corner of Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena, “but when I play it I feel a little weird because I don’t live in that time, a long time ago. I live now, in the 21st Century, so I want to make my own music.”
Together they compose original music on traditional instruments. Jung- min plays the gayageum, a zither-like instrument that is similar to the geo- mungo but actually more common. Traditionally, it would have had twelve strings, but as with the Viet- namese dan tranh, it has been developed and the instrument Seo plays has no fewer than 25 strings. “It’s more useful for expression, and a bigger sound,” she tells me. “I want to find a new technique in
gayageum and [the adapted instrument] is more useful for collaboration with other instruments.”
Park primarily plays the reedy piri. “Piri is my major instrument, made of bamboo like a western oboe. It is very small but can play a loud sound. I love piri more than other instruments,” she con- fesses. More visually striking though is an incredible looking device called a saengh- wang. It resembles a miniature fortress, the kind of thing you expect to see perched on top of a mountain as light- ning cascades around it in a film. It is in fact a handheld 24-pipe organ played with the breath.
‘Breath’ is a key word for the group. It is the translation of the word [su:m] (pronounced ‘soom’) and to them it is a means to music: “Sometimes a soft sigh, sometimes a gasp, and sometimes a silent hold of breath” (to quote from the sleevenotes to their album).
Many of their instrumental duets are intricate, considered, with space to breathe. I ask if this is a reaction to what I can only imagine is a frantic pace of life in their home town of Seoul. “Once a year we go to a mountain,” Park tells me. “We bring all the instruments, and dur- ing a few days we’re just making music. I think our music is more close to nature, but also can feel like a city. Every day we meet in a Seoul practice room; it’s also music in our normal life.”
One question Ian Anderson felt was unanswered when he interviewed Geomungo Factory was whether there still existed a genuine rural folk tradition
[su:m]
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84