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Kim Yoon Ah #2: Glass Mask

Kim Yoon-ah: Glass MaskT Entertainment, 2004
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Kim Yoon Ah (김윤아) is the lead vocalist from Jaurim. Her first solo outing was in 2001 with the well-received Shadow of your Smile. And if LKL had been around in 2004, this follow-up album would have been a strong contender for album of the year.

The opening track, engineered to sound like a reissue (complete with vinyl surface noise), has Kim Yoon Ah sounding rather raw and unadorned, accompanied only by a piano. We move on to an Argentinian tango complete with bandoneon which is more conventionally engineered, followed by a jazz-inspired slow blues number. Track 4 is the appropriately titled Nocturne, which, judging by the number of copies posted to YouTube is the most popular track – staying just on the tasteful side of the slightly kitsch:

Remaining tracks include another tango, stylishly sung (I imagine dangerous love); a beautiful lullaby accompanied by acoustic guitar (When spring comes), which returns later on accompanied by a piano, where its character is completely changed, sounding more like Philip Glass; some slow bossa nova, and a track which has elements of modern celtic fusion music, recorded with a string orchestra.

It’s one of those albums that’s difficult to pigeonhole into one particular genre, and not something you necessarily are expecting if you are a Jaurim fan (which I am). But this is high quality music all composed by Kim herself (apart from the first of the tangos which some sources attribute to Piazzola), and the CD booklet includes some rather sumptuous photographs as well. My only complaints with the disk is that it seems to finish far too quickly, though with 46 minutes of music it’s not ungenerous.

Kim Yoon-ah

One thought on “Kim Yoon Ah #2: Glass Mask

  1. This was the album that introduced me to Kim Yoon-Ah in the first place… it introduced me to Kim Yoon-Ah and eventually to the whole Jaurim discography. 🙂 I have “불안은 영혼을 잠식한다.” to thank for intriguing me so much that I had to hear more.

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