I’m not quite sure why I didn’t rave about Black String’s debut album Mask Dance when it came out in 2017. Listening to Karma, their follow-up studio album on ACT records due to be released on 27 September 2019, I’m finding it compelling listening. And returning to Mask Dance now I’m seeing it in a … [Read More]
Musician: Jean Oh
Black String win Songlines Music Award
Congratulations to Korean fusion group Black String, whose debut album on ACT, Mask Dance, won the Songlines Music Award in the Asia and Pacific category. Black String, who played at the 2017 K-music festival, were in town for the awards ceremony in Brixton on 20 October, where they played music from the album. [Read More]
Gig review: Kathryn Tickell + Black String
After witnessing so many astounding gigs at Club Inegales, where musicians from different cultures come together to create new and unrepeatable sounds, it really should not surprise me when a collaboration that looks slightly weird on paper is actually a stunning success when it happens. Collaboration, between Korean and British-based musicians, is one of the … [Read More]
Tim Garland’s Korean collaboration: Sinawi and the Blues
The combination of Korean traditional instruments with modern western ones gives rise to complex performance issues. Incompatibilities of style, volume, timbre and tuning are challenges to be overcome, not always with success. With the improvisatory nature of jazz, where instruments get their chance for solos and where amplification is a customary feature of the mix, … [Read More]
Event news: Korea Moves – with Tim Garland @ London Jazz Festival
Last year at the KCC we had an interesting jazz / gugak fusion concert. Coming soon as part of the London Jazz Festival, a concert in which the emphasis is more likely to be on the jazz, but with participation from the Tori Ensemble‘s Heo Yoon-jeong (whom we saw at the KCC last February) and … [Read More]