All Living Things

Description

Park Jiha, the acclaimed Korean composer and multi-instrumentalist, creates patient and immersive music that illuminates the essence and texture of the natural and living world. On her fourth album, All Living Things, her mastery of traditional Korean instruments is intimately intertwined with deeply personal compositions and a skillful use of contemporary sonorities. Terms such as “post-classical,” “ambient” or even “cinematic” are useful, but they only skim the shimmering and contemplative sonic universe of this album. Like her critically acclaimed predecessors, Philos (2018) and The Gleam (2022), All Living Things sees her play all the instruments, meticulously layered in the studio to create sumptuous sound worlds. Once again, drawing on her experience in traditional Korean music, she uses a range of instruments unfamiliar to most Western listeners: the piri (a kind of oboe); the yanggeum (a hammered dulcimer); the saenghwang (a large wooden harmonica). Alongside these instruments, one can also hear flute, glockenspiel, bells, her voice and, above all, electronics. It is a tantalizing uncertainty that makes Park Jiha’s music so hard to define. Of course, there are hints of minimalism in the delicate repetitive patterns and percussive cycles. And of course, traditional Korean music serves as the foundation. But there is also the dreamy breath of ambient, the spiritual sincerity of New Age, the formal precision of contemporary classical music and the spontaneity of experimental jazz.