March was a month in which a couple of music awards were announced.
The awards which appeared from nowhere were AVIMA, the Asian Voice Independent Music Awards. And recognising the impact of Indieful ROK, its mastermind Anna Lindgren was one of the international judges of the awards. Anna was nice enough to mention her LKL affiliation in her biography. There was a strong list of Korean nominations in many of the categories, so it was disappointing that the only Korean winner was the rather bland Jang Sei-yong who won the instrumental category.
You can find the Korean nominees here, and can listen to the winning Korean track (“One Day on Moon”) on MySpace here. The info is all rather tricky to find on AVIMA’s website.
Second, the 6th annual Korean Music Awards were announced in March. Anna has the complete list of winners here. Sister’s Barbershop (언니네 이발관 – above right) seems to have come out of it pretty well, winning album of the year and best modern rock song (they also made it in to Jenny Wu’s shortlist for LKL Album of the Year); and I’m also pleased that one of my own favourite Jazz musicians of any nationality – Nah Youn Sun – came away with an award as well (best jazz album), while an album which almost made it in to my 2008 shortlist – W&Whale’s Hard Boiled – was voted best Dance & Electronic album. Younha was the Netizens’ choice for female artist, while Jang Ki Ha and the Faces were the choice for male artist.
