Karma

EDITORIAL REVIEWS
The band Black String has added several new dimensions to the genre world music. The South Korean quartet led by geomungo (traditional Korean zither) player Yoon Jeong Heo takes stylistic building blocks from traditional Asian music, jazz, blues and rock, and from electronica too, and juggles them expertly. It’s a powerful mix, bursting with all kinds of timbre possibilities, a context in which improvisation and traditional forms truly merge. The new album Karma represents a modern, global kind of music. Whereas it knows no borders, it definitely has strong and deep roots. The way in which the typical melody lines of classical Asian music and the sound of traditional instruments are fused with current styles and methods is even more artistic and multi-layered, and the result is music which is completely new and individual. The opening track Sureña draws the listener in completely: the groove is blues-based and it underlays the ethereal theme, which in turn is taken over by the different instruments in improvised solos as in jazz. There is also sparse use of electronic sounds. Even more astonishing is the effect when Min Wang Hwang dramatically intones the traditional Korean shamanic singing on Exhale-Puri, and then rises to a shout – accompanied by the band playing swelling rock rhythms. Blue Shade, the final piece of the album sounds like it might be some kind of Far Eastern ProgRock. But there are other moods to Karma as well: this band can enter a mysterious and meditative zone, as it does in the title track. Karma is an Asian spiritual concept whereby every action inevitably has both physical and spiritual consequences. It is the perfect title for this album, since no listener could possibly be indifferent faced with what Black String do. Their music, which combines the complex and the extremely catchy, triggers mental as well as physical reactions. This is a world in which epochs and styles intertwine.

Number of Discs: 1

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