daorum reviews

Aussie in Love with Korean Sounds
Living Arts Korea 31/10/2005

An Australian jazz drummer who fell in love with traditional Korean music had a dream come true when he performed with Korean musicians in Seoul last week.
Described as "one of our most outstanding musicians" by the Sydney Morning Herald, Simon Barker led the concert with a combination of Band of Five Names and Showa 44, as part of the "Australian Month" festivities. He played with Bae Il-dong, singer of traditional narrative songs, or pansori, and traditional drummer Kim Dong-won.
The improvised collaboration performed an intriguing, harmonious and exciting set with the Korean musicians. In the climax, the audience clapped with the beat of the drums.
After the performance, sweaty and smiling, Barker held an interview with The Korea Herald, during which he expressed how glad he was to perform with Korean musicians. "I`ve been trying to study and understand Korean music as much as I can for eight years. I`ve always wanted to try some collaboration with traditional musicians here. This is like a dream come true," he said.
He first learned about Korean traditional music when he interviewed many Korean shamans for a project film called "In Search of Intangible Cultural Asset #82," an exploration of shaman music in various provinces in Korea. "The sound and rhythms are so beautiful and so special. For me, it`s the most powerful music in the world," he said.
The combination of Kim`s traditional drumming beats, Barker`s jazzy and creative drumming and guitarist Carl Dewhurst`s electronic sounds produced powerful music which enthralled the audience.
Bae`s pansori, or Korean epic song, with the sounds of the keyboard and electric guitar, trumpet, cymbals climbed to a climax where all the musicians seemed to be creating a world of their own.
"The music evolved into a sonic portrait of Korea`s hidden character interweaved with a sense of Australia`s vast spaces and jazz pathos from the United States. It created an imaginary place where the music we were listening to was its utopian anthem!" commented one audience member.
Barker said their sounds were also influenced by Aboriginal music. "The trumpet player and the guitarist have been studying Aboriginal music and they`ve told me a lot of things about it ... especially the long sound, space, a sense of dryness ... Maybe they`re influenced not just by Aboriginal music but perhaps by the landscape of Australia," he said.
Barker was asked by Australia`s public broadcaster ABC to bring Kim Dong-won and Bae Il-dong to Australia for a concert next year.
"I hope to come back here to perform this kind of collaboration in other parts of Korea," he said.
By Kim Yoon-mi

Taking Pansori, Jazz to a new level of intensity
Living arts Korea 3/11/2005

When a Manhattan-trained jazz drummer on his “search for the essence of Korean music” met pansori singer Bae Il-dong, he found a voice with a timbre that had been toughened and refined by seven years of screaming into a waterfall at Jirisan National Park.

To help spread the word, Australian-born Simon Barker last week brought here from Sydney guitarist Carl Dewhurst, trumpet player Phil Slater and keyboardist Matt McMahon who play in groups Band of Five Names and Showa44. Last Wednesday they teamed up with Bae and traditional drummer, “janggu” player Kim Dong-won to present a collaboration of jazz and pansori at the National Theater of Korea in Seoul.

The event was offered in the October Australia Month Festival 2005 as the Australian embassy had it from John Shand of the Sydney Morning Herald that here was “some of the most innovative and absorbing improvised music being made in Australia.”

Barker has been coming here for almost ten years, researching the music of shamans and this year, he has been making a documentary called “In Search of Intangible Cultural Asset No. 82,” referring to the tradition of folk ritual and drama. And the highlight is Bae's voice.“It's just extraordinary. He has this really intense emotional capability,” said Barker. “It's incredibly rich and fat, it just fills the room, it's so visceral and I don't know anything like it,” Slater elaborated.

At first Bae wondered why these Australians were so interested in Korean music. “It's just traditional.” But after a short conversation, he said he could recognize their passion and sincerity.“There are not many with a musical philosophy, so we could share so much very quickly. I really like them and everything they play, even though it's a different genre.”

Barker is adamant their collaboration is not simply about pasting music together in some kind of cornball fusion, instead its like two streams coming together and trying to interact, he said.

And their forces combined proved to be a remarkable musical interaction. From the beginning of the performance, it clearly had nothing to do with finding a couple of secret Eastern-enriched flavorings for the new age jazz scene.

Dewhurst and Barker, a duo known as Showa44, started the show off with a meticulous banter of guitar and drum. Continuing to build the momentum, Kim joined in with poise for the second set offering traditional Korean drum rhythms and dance movements. Then came the Band of Five Names. With Barker and Dewhurst, McMahon's keyboard and Slater's soft, skillful trumpeting lifted through maze-like atmospheres turning from boisterous to mellow and back again.

Barker switched intermittently through a variety of percussion devices, bells and cymbals found over the years in Korea. Dewhurst, grinning across at the drummer, caught the reverberations from the drums and displayed his own ingenious range of guitar techniques.

Finally, the long-awaited Bae marched out onto the stage. With a fan in hand he opened up like a gregarious giant to these 30-something-year-olds from Sydney. His pushing them to create their own thunderous response resulted in a rhythmic indulgence that the pansori singer lapped up and returned fivefold.

It was the climax from “Chunhyang,” the Korean “Romeo and Juliet” _ an edgy, sweaty version that stirred the crowd as they clapped along with Bae at front waving and conducting with his fan. And the band behind chased each other with their own exuberance that didn't want to know the end.

DAORUM - QUEENSLAND MUSIC FESTIVAL
Greg Gottlieb - ABC

The Brisbane Powerhouse's Visy theatre keeps the music and the audience close together. The gestures and faces of the performers in Daorum are just as visible as the subtlest nuances of their music are audible. Six musicians - four Australian and two Korean - enter the room and position themselves within the stage space.
Daorum is drummer Simon Barker's brainchild. In 2005, an Australian Embassy commission to create a cross-cultural event inspired Barker to unite Australian musicians - trumpeter Phil Slater, pianist Matt McMahon and guitarist Carl Dewhurst - with Korean musicians - Pansori singer Bae Il Tong and traditional percussionist Kim Dong Won.
A soft opening stanza builds into a raucous cacophony of improvised music. Somewhere amidst the colliding sonic waves there's a unique concoction of Australiana, Miles Davis soundscapes, onslaughts of contemporary free jazz and a vaguely familiar Korean-ness. The scene brashly set, Daorum contracts to a dialogue between Barker and Kim Dong Won.
Barker's recent years have been spent absorbing principles of the South Korean shamanistic drumming traditions of which Kim Dong Won is a master. Barker attributes a 'powerfully relaxed' and centred percussive approach to the spiritual and physical core of those traditions. His rhythmic conversations with Kim Dong Won create enthralling grooves and textures - same mastery, different approaches.
Bae Il Tong steps into the spotlit foreground, a closed folding fan clasped in one hand as song pushes from his throat. The storytelling is drenched in the traditions of Pansori, Korea's traditional theatrical music. Three suspended visual projection screens depict running water. While the taut, Korean syllables suggest interpretable narrative meanings, the drama and intensity of the performance are profound and firmly tangible.
The kwangdae's (singer's) strained shouts and cracked wails lead then follow the gosu's (drummer's) beat. Barker's flexible improvisations create a broad pulse which solidly propels Bae Il Tong's narrative. The two enjoy focused interaction at the eye of the musical storm forming around them. The singer's body language sometimes belies the pressure in his voice; after two breathtakingly powerful scenes, the tears streaming down his hot face are better evidence than his composed posture.
Daorum's fusion of Eastern and Western sounds produces pleasing sonic relationships: Matt McMahon presses harshly distorted Nord keyboard sounds up against the raw sandpaper of drums and raspy voice; later, his acoustic piano musings are a smooth, trickling undercurrent; Carl Dewhurst's electric guitar wrestles against the rituals and traditions, dominating pensive moments but subdued by the most engaging ones.
Underlying the tumultuous multimedia mesh of improvised music, visuals and theatrical elements is a subtly felt thread of peace. From Simon Barker blossoms a cavalcade of notes as though he were affecting a single brush stroke; Phil Slater's trumpet shrieks when freed and whimpers when muted, both tones delivered with measured intention; Kim Dong Won drums meditatively, seated cross-legged on the crest of an enormous dynamic wave.
When the performance concludes, there's no stunned silence or barrage of elated whoops. Contentment permeates the vibe. Daorum's music breaks new ground and the results are certainly fruitful. Simon Barker's conceived cultural interaction has come to life and proven its worth. The theatre empties itself of people treated to a unique, interesting and satisfying show.