# 7 Curated Focus Weekly | South Korean Underground
Curated Focus Weekly, a musical experiment to have a good ear week ◄(^_^)►
THIS WEEK: · Experimental Electro · Avant-Rock · Groove hip hop · Piano driven soundtrack ·
This week we are exploring a bit of South Korean’s underground music. In 1997 there was a really bad financial crisis, that affected heavily the music scene in South Korea.
After this, music found its way to evolve via piracy of CDs, luckily enough for us, the internet is nowadays the platform where the underground music has found its home, giving us the opportunity to meet these pearls of pure amaze that South Korea underground music has to offer. We hope you love this episode, as much as we loved to write it.
UP
Set: 1020 Radio Leevisa & Chadwood
Listen on: SoundCould
Genre: Experimental Electro
Pair with: After lunch, need to be chilly but awake later
This is a set where Leevisa played the first half, and Chadwood the second half. Both of them are part of a collective called Free Collision, their focus is to create music and art
Leevisa is one of the raisin female Djs and producers from Seoul, who in the middle of our chaotic times, began to realise the important role music plays in sociocultural contexts, and started to explore the more forward-thinking sounds we hear on her music.
Listen more of her
Chadwood is also a DJ and producer from Seoul, making experimental electro. She describes herself as a dystopian and dark vibe are some of the terms Hyuna Cha, AKA chawood, uses to describe her mechanized, emotionally complex electronic music.
Listen more of her
MID
EP: Onda by Jambinai
Listen on: Spotify / Bandcamp / Deezer
Genre: Avant-Rock
Pair with: Need of creativity
Jambinai are known for combining rock (drums, bass, bass, electric guitar) with traditional Korean folk music (haegeum, piri, geomungo). Their debut album Différance won the award for Best Crossover Album at the 2013 Korean Music Awards. And they played in 2018’s Winter Olympics at Pyeongchang with an orchestra of geomungo players. Most of people where expecting some K-Pop (Korean Pop), but the organizers decided to go with something more artsy and underground!
Today we got their EP album for you, Onda, which was featured as album of the day in Bandcamp. When you listen to this album, sometimes you feel like doing yoga, but as this album has a mix of Korean music with influence’s of Sepultura, it ends up being more like an extreme form of spirituality, as the review of Bandcamp said: “Onda seeks to sublimate catharsis from suffering.”
Listen more of them
EP: Room Service by GroovyRoom & Leellamarz
Listen on: Spotify / Apple music
Genre: Groove hip hop
Pair with: Usual work but you want inspiration
GroovyRoom are Gyujeong Park and Hwimin Lee. They started playing with hip hop, building their fan base by uploading very well crafted youtube videos whilst on high school. Today, they are what many people say masters of groovy, collaborating a lot with other musicians from their label and creating some of the best hip-hop coming out of Seoul today.
Listen more of them
Leellamarz is a South Korean rapper, being on the scene since 2017. Ever since, he has produced loads of crazy good music, and in this EP album of the year’s review says “his voice seems sown into the seams of GroovyRoom’s production, certain voices flourish with the right texture and color and here on RoomService LeellaMarz’s dexterous performance is allowed to echo across the walls in distortion and twitching cadences”
Listen more of him
DOWN
Soundtrack: Parasite by Jung Jae-il
Listen on: Soundcloud / Deezer
Genre: Soundtrack piano driven
Pair with: Deep focus
As you might know, Parasite has won multiple oscars this year, Best Picture, Best Director, Best foreign language, Best original screenplay, and not only that, this is the first foreign movie ever wining the price of best picture. So, it got us thinking: How is the soundtrack? Well, it’s a piano driven composed by a Korean artist called Jung Jae-il.
The review on Pitchfork described very well this soundtrack as “Composer Jung Jae-il’s score strikes a delicate balance between gentleness and severity, creating unexpected musical contrasts that evoke a constant sense of uncertainty. …. Like the plot of Bong’s film, the twists and turns of Jung’s score turn out to be circular path back to an uncannily familiar place.”
Listen more of him
Yay or nay? What do you thing about curated focus? Have some shareworthy music for the next issue? Send us an email
Until the next!
