Park Jiha – The Gleam (Glitterbeat, LP/CD/digital)

Park Jiha belongs to a generation of musicians who are opening up new compositional possibilities with the instruments of the South Korean gugak. But she nonetheless has little in common with her contemporaries in the sense that her music defies all comparisons. Park wrote and recorded her third album »The Gleam« alone with piri, yanggeum, glockenspiel and a saenghwang that is also depicted on the cover. That alone would be impressive enough, but it's not everything. Because the music and the sound of these recordings are just as astonishing. Park's manifold influences—Fourth World music, minimal, (post-)rock, jazz—reverberate in the subtle yet stirring dynamics of these eight pieces, but do not make concessions to this or that convention. No, this record is completely uncategorisable in the very best sense of that word. And produced in a way that makes the acoustic instruments sound completely futuristic.