IC B. Reviewed on 8/17/2017...
This orginal music by Korean artist Kim Young Dong is traditional in spirit but modern in execution. Showcasing the simple wind instrument called the "Hun", known elsewhere as a kind of ocarina, it has eight holes, not five, which makes a much wider range of notes available to it. "The Hun has the unique quality of sounding like both the wind, and the earth," writes Kim Young Dong, of the tiny instrument.
Other musical instruments featured here are the iron-stringed Kumongo, a kind of zither, played with both a stick and a roller, the Quena, actually a Peruvian instrument very like the Korean upright bamboo flute known as the Tanso, and the Tapo, a wooden instrument a little like a Marimba, various other traditional percussion instruments and the Tageum, a bamboo flute. The tracks are instrumental, although wordless vocals are introduced occasionally almost as another kind of "sound" as well.
Electronics and electric guitars are included: this is no dry "field recording", but rather an exploration of traditional forms from the mind of a contemporary artist. This is a dreamy fantasy on traditional music.
The liner notes, in Korean and English, provide background about these original pieces, but my favorite comment explains in an extremely straight-faced way that on one track, "one may hear the sound of the wind" -- created by the swinging of a garden hose!
A very interesting and pleasing recording.