London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

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]

Songlines reviews some Korean releases

As if to warm us up for this year’s K-music Festival, Songlines July issue reviews three recent Korean CDs: The one of most interest to past attendees of the festival will be a review of Jambinai’s latest release, A Hermitage. Songlines were strangely lukewarm about it. Not so Consequence of Sound: “Experimental outfit blends traditional Korean … [Read More]

Dulsori in Evelyn Glennie’s Songlines playlist

I’ve just belatedly been going through my recent purchases of Songlines magazine, the world music publication which gave Hyelim Kim a 4-star review this time last year. I spotted that their October 2014 edition featured a playlist recommended by Evelyn Glennie – of which the first track was by the Korean percussion group Dulsori: Drum … [Read More]

Hyelim Kim reviewed in Songlines magazine

Congratulations to Hyelim Kim for receiving a four-star review from Songlines magazine (Jan / Feb 2014 edition) for her debut CD, Nim: Taegum Collection. The disk, released in 2013 at a concert at the Royal Asiatic Society, contains many of the pieces she has been performing in London over the past year or two, from … [Read More]

2010 Travel Diary #16: A meeting with Hwang Byungki

Tuesday 4 May 2010. Hwang Byungki is probably Korea’s best known performer and composer for the kayageum. When I submitted my proposal to the Korean Culture and Information Service for the stories I wanted to investigate during my visit – of which the main one was the preservation and reinvention of Korean traditional culture – … [Read More]