SOUNDTRACK: JAMBINAI-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #234 (July 09, 2021).
Why oh why oh why do all the best Tiny Desk Concerts have to be so short?
This show is AMAZING and it’s only 12 minutes long. Meanwhile, some other bands have dragged theirs out for almost twice as long. Alas.
I was introduced to JAMBINAI (like many others I’m sure) at the 2018 winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea. Their set was spectacular and it blew me away. In reality, the band is much smaller than that spectacle produced, but their sound is still huge and intense.
I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “fierce” to describe a Tiny Desk, but that’s precisely what JAMBINAI has created in this (home) concert. The show begins in front of a massive recreation of my desk and what happens next … well, no spoilers here. Filmed in an immersive media art museum created by an organization known as d’strict on Jeju Island, this Korean band contains multitudes.
JAMBINAI plays traditional Korean instruments, but adds rock guitars and bass.
At its heart, JAMBINAI’s music mixes elements of metal, noise and Korean tradition. There’s full-on distorted guitar, bass and drums, but also a haegeum (a fiddle-like instrument), a piri (a type of flute), a taepyeongso (a reed instrument) and a most appropriately named instrument, a geomungo (a giant Korean zither). We also hear some delicate vocals in the mix.
The two pieces performed here include 2015’s “Time of Extinction” and the more recent and epic “ONDA.”
“Time Of Extinction” is the song they played at the Olympic and while it’s only three minutes long it feels epic and really encompasses their sound. It opens with a plucked geomungo creating the simple riff. After 20 second Ilwoo Lee plays a feedbacking guitar note and then Jaehyuk Choi comes crashing in on the drums. At the same time, the visuals blow your mind.
The basis of the song is Eunyong Sim’ geomungo rhythm and Bomi Kim’s keening haegeum solo. The guitars add a terrific tension to the basic melody. In the middle of the song when it’s just drum and Byeongkoo Yu’s bass playing, the thumping is broken by the fully distorted guitar You don’t expect Ilwoo Lee to bust out a taepyeongso and play a traditional and rather discordant horn solo on top. Just when it seems the song is about to launch to a new direction it’s over. Just like that.
There is something so unearthly about the geomungo–it’s percussive and stringed and you can feel it rumble and thump ta the same time
“ONDA” is 8 minutes long and opens with Ilwoo Lee playing a saenghwang an amazing looking wind instrument that I cant quite fathom. He plays a terrific sounding melody with it –almost patronal. Except for the low electronic chords underneath it
Then comes the rumble–the thundering drums and bass and a fast repetition from the geomungo.
Then Bomi Kim sings a gentle, calming echoing vocal line that sound magical under the rumble. After a verse of so Ilwoo Lee joins in on harmony vocals and they sound terrific together.
The song builds in intensity, as lwoo Lee adds the guitar, then it pulls back as Lee plays a piri solo that becomes a call and response with the haegeum.
There’s a wild jamming solo section that grows super intense. The way it builds to a climax and is followed by huge crashing chords (and great visuals) is monumental. Everyone joins in singing for the last minute as the melody soars and soars.
Maybe 12 minutes is all we can handle.
[READ: July 1, 2021] The Whispering Wars
This book is related to The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone in that it is set in the same land (The Land of Kingdoms and Empires). But it is set some thirty years before the adventures of that book. Through some magic (this is a magical land), we do see Bronte briefly. but if she ever starts to give way anything about the future, she is instantly sent back to where she came from.
In the first book we are aware of the Whispering Wars as being a big event in the past. This book explains how they started.
This book is told by two (sometimes three) alternating narrators. There is Finlay, who lives at the orphanage and Honey Bee who lives at the fancy Brathelthwaite school.
How they wind up alternating chapters isn’t explained until much later, which I rather enjoyed (both the delay and the explanation).
As the book opens, Finlay explains that it is time for the annual Spindrift (the town where they live) tournament. The kids at the orphanage looks forward to this event because they can show up the rich kids. Finlay is a super fast runner, as is his friend Glim. The twins Eli and Taya aren’t super fast but they are very strong and good with their hands (and can multitask like nobody’s business). There’s also Jaskafar, a tiny boy who sleeps on top of the wardrobe–his storyline is very funny until he is the first Orphan to be taken. (more…)
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SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.
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