2010 Korean Indie Music Overview

By Mark Russell

More Sound of Seoul

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Korea's independent music scene continued to grow and expand in 2010, with more bands making more interesting music than ever before. No one person could possibly keep track of it all – although Anna at Indieful ROK (indiefulrok.blogspot.com) and Shawn at the Korea Gig Guide (www.koreagigguide.com) come close – but I thought I would do my part to talk about some of the best new music last year, at least in my humble opinion.

DJ Soulscape – More Sound of Seoul
Far and away the best album of the year. DJ Soulscape mixed together a huge smorgasbord of great Korean music from the 1970s, most of which you've never heard before. It's as educational as it is fun, and all-round brilliant.

Apollo 18 – Violet and Red
One of Korea best rock/post-rock bands today put out two interesting albums this year. Red was a re-release of last year's album, but remixed with a few extra songs (thanks to the money they earned from winning the Hello Rookie award in 2009). Together with 2009's Blue, each album has a slightly different feel, while still being a unified sound.

Glittering Blackness, Fall – EP

Glittering Blackness, Fall is one of the most interesting of Korea's many instrumental, "post-rock" bands. Their EP is just four tracks long, but each is a surging blast of noise and swirling progressions.

Midnight Hotel

Oriental Lucy – Midnight Hotel
More quirky and electronic album (and Portishead-like) than their first EP, Oriental Lucy is more alternative/indie rock, like the kind of thing you might hear on KCRW or some college radio station in the West like that. At times more New Wave sounding, singer Soohee's brings their songs an unusual urgency and energy. Also one of the best live bands in Korea these days.

Sunkyeol – EP

A moody, acoustic ambient release, I found Sunkeyol a pleasant surprise. I am not sure what I was expecting, but her album was surprisingly moving for such a simple sound. I am told it was actually recorded in 2006, but just released last year.

We Are Made Of Stardust

Lee Sang-eun – We Are Made of Stardust
With her 14th album, Lee is quite a veteran of the Korean music scene. But while some of her albums can be repetitive, and sometimes boring, this is one of her most creative and lively in quite some time. A little uneven, sure, but most of the songs here are quite pleasant and catchy. Even more surprising, her voice sounds clearer than it has in quite some time. Has recording technology found a way to reverse the effects of 20 years of smoking? No idea, but this was a good album.

Jambinai
One of the most unusual new bands around, Jambinai uses Korean traditional instruments, but cannot really be considered "traditional" music at all. With their ambient, surging style, they are closer to post-rock than anything from the Joseon Dynasty. But their use of Korean traditional instruments makes their sound incredibly haunting and captivating.

Swimmingdoll – 8winningdoll
One of the more interesting and unusual entrants into the post-rock, shoegazer genre. Swimmingdoll songs start out pleasant and haunting, but then jar with odd atonal shifts and dubs.

Lowdown 30 – Another Side of Jaira EP
Growling blues rock, like the Black Keys. Not all the songs work, but the best are gravelly, heavy fun. The first song Jungdok is especially good.

For more information about Korean indie music, you can check out Monocle magazine's online radio podcast, which features W&Whale and 3rd Line Butterfly.

You can also get a good overview of Korean indie music from 2010 at this Youtube playlist of the Bugs Music Award winners (put together by Anna from IndiefulROK):