Description

“An intriguing instrumental set that mixes minimalism and melody with bursts of furious energy and experimentation, with echoes of anything from ambient styles to free jazz. This is music that ebbs and flows like the sea. There are passages where vibraphone and dulcimer provide throbbing, repeated and percussive backing for piri, or horn solos that gradually build up and erupt like a furious storm before the calm eventually returns, as in the lengthy All Soul’s Day. And there are gently tranquil, atmospheric passages where the saenghwang sounds like an organ – as on the exquisite The Longing of the Yawning Divide, inspired by the Belgian monastery where she rehearsed with her band.”

 The Guardian (‘World music album of the month’) ★★★★☆

 “Jiha’s gift is in her ability to skirt dull prettiness in favor of exploiting the edges of her instruments, yet not at the expense of tangible, straightforward melodies.”

Pitch Fork

“The album features beautifully delicate yet resonant melodies, and displays her impressive range on traditional regional instruments including the saenghwang (a mouth-blown pipe organ), piri (double-reed bamboo flute) and the yanggeum (hammered dulcimer).”

BBC Culture

“Each track builds a poetic minimalistic and avant-garde jazz interplay between all the numerous traditional instrumentation … Sometimes hypnotic, sometimes at a fever pitch of discordant beauty, a balance is cleverly struck between intensity and the attentive … Transforming Korean traditions into a more experimental language that evokes the avant-garde, neo-classical and jazz yet something quite different, Park Jiha’s tranquil to entangled discourse evocations reach beyond their Southeast Asian borders both musically and metaphysically into something approaching the unique.”

Monolith Cocktail

Park Jiha [Communion], The ladder to transcend the reality
“Communion, the latest album of Park Jiha, without disagreement, is a masterpiece. Park Jiha created a modern and avant-garde sound by combining a traditional sound which is a conglomeration of saenghwang, yanggeum, piri, and vocal with KimOki’s instrumental collaboration. Abstractness of the instrumental music was clarified with beautiful melodies of each song. The exotic sounds are connected to each other with distinct instrumental melodies. The songs navigate towards a world that beams like a lighthouse, as each title of the songs imply. Not only Park Jiha frees herself from tradition, she clearly understands her way. Her music lights up the every alley and lets you put behind all the chaos for a while.
If music is a ladder that represents and records reality and moreover, the tool for us to transcend reality,
Park Jiha’s music is a particular thing, and at the same time not a particular thing that dominates us with powerful persuasion and universality.”

Seojeong Mingaph

“숨[suːm]에서 활동 중인 연주자 박지하가 내놓은 음반 [Communion] 역시 역작이었다. 박지하는 생황, 양금, 피리 연주와 노래를 버무려 한국 전통음악의 악기가 뿜어내는 고전적 아취에 김오키 등의 연주를 결합시켜 현대적이고 때로 아방가르드한 사운드를 만들어냈다. 연주음악의 막연함은 각 곡의 아름다운 멜로디로 명확해졌다. 생경한듯한 사운드를 명징한 연주의 멜로디로 이어나갈 때마다 수록곡들은 제목이 인도하는 등대 같은 세계를 향해 천천히 나아갔다. 전통에 스스로를 가두지 않고, 나아갈 방향이 명확할 뿐만 아니라, 가는 길목마다 등불 같은 아름다움을 피워올릴 줄 아는 음악은 번잡한 세상쯤은 잠시 잊게 하기 충분했다. 음악이 현실의 반영이자 기록이며 현실을 넘어설 수 있게 하는 사다리 같은 것이라 할 때 박지하의 음악은 그 무엇이어도 좋고, 그 무엇이 아니어도 좋을 만큼 강력한 설득력과 보편성으로 엄습했다.”

민중의 소리 서정민갑 대중음악 의견가