Fabulous Pleasure: Korean Mindwarps

If you haven't heard, I've spent the last two years teaching English in Seoul, South Korea. Since this is a music blog I won't go into depth about my experience except to say that, for a city of 10 million people, Seoul doesn't have much in the way of rock n'roll. The airwaves are dominated by pop and polished hip-hop, so much so that it makes the US airwaves look adventurous. There is a intriguing, if small crop of present-day groups that I'll get to in later posts, but today I want to write about the little known (outside of Korea, at least) Korean psychedelic movement of the 70's.

I came across these albums last fall while my girlfriend and I were wandering through a massive flea-market in Sindang, one of Seoul's grimier neighborhoods. Situated between a fishing supply store and a sex shop was a used record store. Somewhere in the back they had a shelf full of old Korean LPs that had been transferred to CD and re-released by Pony Canyon, a Japanese record label. Knowing nothing of the artists, we chose them based on their fantastically trippy covers. But when we played them at home we were amazed to have stumbled upon some truly remarkable psychedelic rock where we thought none existed. Wasn't Korea still reeling from the war at this time? Wasn't the government suppressing this kind of "rebellious" music?

Apparently some of it slipped through the cracks, and thank god for that. The CDs we picked up that day have gotten considerable play long after their initial novelty wore off. In my opinion these stand up to nearly anything from the west. Some claim they're cheap knock-offs of the popular American and English artists of the day, but I can't pinpoint who they're cribbing from.

Kim Jung Mi's Now is the album I enjoy the most. Some songs remind me of Motown while other bring to mind the dark pop Bridget Bardot (who is apparently disdained in Korea for criticizing their consumption of dog-meat during the '88 Seoul Olympics) made with Serge Gainsbourg. It never reaches full-blown psychedelia, but the layers of organs and harmonies drenched in reverb would allow one to put it under that tag.

Shin Jung Hyun was somewhat of a ringleader for this scene. He wrote the music for Kim Jung Mi as well as other Korean pop groups like the Pearl Sisters, who are a gem in their own right. As well as producing and arranging all these albums, he also had his own bands, one of which was Shin Jung Hyun and the Men. Unlike the music Kim and Shin made for Now, the Men take psychedelia to its most indulgent extreme. Organs swirl; guitars wind in and out of solos. Sometimes songs turn unabashedly jocular or slip into seemingly endless jazz passages. If you don't believe me, "Beautify Country" is, at 9:56, the shortest song on the album. To put it simply, this album has its peaks and valleys but no one could accuse Shin Jung Hyun of playing it safe.

It's hard to pinpoint why I find these albums intriguing. The fact that they're from South Korea does make them a little more exotic. Hearing someone singing in a foreign language always evokes an air of mystery. Plus, lyrics are often the worst part of the psychedelic rock. How many times have I winced at clumsy, drug-induced couplets that only weakened the songs themselves?

Then there's the political aspect. I realize these two came from wealthy Korean families and must have had it easy compared to most of their countrymen, but one must also consider that they were making this music under a military dictatorship, one that eventually banned them from performing and destroyed many of their records. Thank god Japanese collectors snapped up a good number of them until Korea's political climate stabilized and the government loosened its grip on pop music. These could certainly benefit from a digital remastering but I feel lucky to have heard them at all.

Shin Jung Hyun and the Men- Beautiful Country
RIYL: Simply Saucer, Stereolab, Os Mutantes
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