https://youtu.be/xXi5I47wNy0

Park Jiha’s debut album “Communion” – released internationally by tak:til last year – drew well deserved attention to the young Korean instrumentalist/composer’s vivid soundworld. The widely acclaimed album graced 2018 critics lists at The WIRE, Pop Matters and The Guardian. Her new album “Philos”– which she calls an evocation of her “love for time, space and sound” –is every bit as inventive, elegant and transcendent as her debut.

While Park Jiha’s music is often contextualized by its kinship with minimalism, ambient and chamber jazz, her creative backbone is Korean traditional music. Jiha formally studied both its theory and practice and has mastered three of its most emblematic instruments:

“I play a traditional Korean instrument called piri which is like an oboe. Piri is a double reed bamboo flute so it can be quite loud. But I also choose saenghwang (mouth organ), yanggeum (hammered dulcimer), percussion or vocal according to the type of music I’m composing. Picking an instrument has to do with the voice in which I choose to talk. Just like human voice, every instrument has its own charm.”

On “Communion” Park Jiha wove these ancient instruments into an ensemble sound that included other musicians contributing on vibraphone, saxophone, bass clarinet and percussion. The effect felt revelatory. An admixture that brought together different epochs and cultures and yielded sonic possibilities that were more futurist than traditionalist. It seemed to naturally evoke Jon Hassell’s “Fourth World” ethos, a music that morphs across time and tradition.

Park Jiha’s new album “Philos,” is both an extension of, and a swerve away from, her previous record. It shares its predecessor’s patience and deeply resonant hypnotic effects. It similarly looks to the future, while c.......
więcej