Wellspring

Description

Masterful composer- improviser DoYeon Kim is an unparalleled practitioner of the
Korean gayageum (a silk-string zither), and is also in possession of a purposeful vocal
intensity. This is her debut album as a bandleader, featuring fellow master musicians
Tyshawn Sorey (drums), Mat Maneri (viola), Henry Fraser (bass).
Armed with an unlikely traditional instrument, flanked by three extraordinary
improvisers, radiating a brash, acoustic strategy that simultaneously invokes folk
universalism and a No Wave battle- stance, the Brooklyn- based virtuoso will drop a
volcanic sonic statement with grand humanist goals on May 1. Kim mingles Korean
lullabies, fervent interactions between drums and strings, and pure instrumental
expressions of musical self. At times, she sounds like she can halt armies. Wellspring
is a call for society to come together.
How the Seoul, South Korea- born 34- year- old came to be the centuries- old zither’s
leading (only?) practitioner of contemporary improvised music, reflects an expansive
embrace of her own culture, her place in modern society, and her ascending
recognition of music’s liberatory power.
DoYeon Kim ‘s teachers at Seoul National University recognized that her roving
musical mind – less interested in ancient repertoire than in speaking to the modern
world – needed challenges. America beckoned, with the New England Conservatory
offering a non- ethnomusicological pathway via its Contemporary Improvisation
department. It set off a process of analysing, absorbing, digesting, and, most of all,
listening. Under the guidance of NEC instructor and legendary guitarist Joe Morris, in
came the methodologies of Ornette, Braxton and Derek Bailey, to name a few.
Mixing her voice with the gayageum’s dynamics gave Kim’s performances a previously
unforeseen power. Kim recognised how such elements echoed the Korean pansori
tradition of musical storytelling. The discovery coincided with her increased desire to
share narratives, while Kim’s delivery created an unforeseen sonic dynamic that
suddenly made aspects of her work harken to the post- punk- influenced sound of
late-1970s and ’80s Downtown NYC.