Wonderfully catchy, funky, psychedelic and quirky new work by the seven-piece Seoul-based Korean pansori band led by bassist Jang Young Gyu with the title track of their new EP, out on 12 June via Luaka Bop, and heralding a European and North American tour.
Pansori is a traditional Korean style of musical storytelling rooted in shamanism and developed during the Joseon Dynasty (17th century), these songs tell epic tales of love, virtue, sorrow, and dragon kings. As if reverberating in our ears from a spiritual plane, the sounds emitting from Leenalchi's singers are transcendent. Their line-up, as singular as their sound, features two bassists, drums, keyboards but no guitar, and four singers.
On Here Comes That Crow as on most Leenalchi songs, Jang wordlessly directs his vision of cross-cultural funk with a collaborative spirit. First comes the rhythm section, developed with drummer Oh Hyung Suk, which sets the foundation for a song, then, singers Park Soo Bum, Ahn Yi Ho, Ra Seo Jin, and Choi Su In draw from the repertoire of pansori songs to discover the most distinctive and fitting sounds.
Adapted from a pansori tale about the Chinese warlord Cao Cao’s most decisive battle, Here Comes That Crow is an allegory about life’s precariousness. Ahn, together with his fellow Leenalchi members, wrote a poem to help listeners interpret the song’s meaning:
도용도용은 작은 배가 물위를 떠가는 모양을 그린 말이다. 조조도 조자룡도 쫓기는 자도 쫓는 자도 멈출수는 없다.
판자때기 아래가 저승인데 어느 누가 멈춰 설 수 있겠는가!
Doyung doyung goes the small boat seen floating down the river.
Whether the chased or the chaser, no one can stop—just beneath the boards lies the underworld!
As part of their training, pansori singers are required to spend time singing next to a waterfall, tasked to carefully observe and mimic the sonic nuances of water. The Korean language is full of onomatopoeias. The repetition in these words create their own rhythmic unit, each word functioning like a tiny song: Kwal-kwal (콸콸) is the sound of a running stream; gaegul-gaegul (개굴개굴) goes the frog; and mimetic words (a slippery floor is mikkeul-maekkeul (미끌매끌); sol-sol (솔솔) is a kind of gentle and subtle slowness).
Jang is also prestigious film composer, scoring soundtracks for some of Korea’s most celebrated movies including Train to Busan, The Wailing, and The Good, the Bad, the Weird.
To explore and enjoy more by Leenalchi, see also the other embedded links below.
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