Philos

"[A] fascinating and rewarding album [from a musician who utilises] traditional instruments and tropes in the creation of new improvised, ambient, chamber and experimental music. Park Jiha's second album is a beautifully realised, layered work on which she plays all instruments herself - principally piri (bamboo oboe), saenghwang (bamboo mouth organ) and yanggeum (hammered dulcimer). Lebanese poet Dima El Sayed recites her words on "Easy", but this is otherwise an all-instrumental album. "Arrival" proves an attention-grabbing opener which introduces each of the instruments on the album, while "Thunder Shower" effectively incorporates field recordings of rain. The meditative title track, the sonic daydream which is "On Water", and the melodic "When I Think Of Her" are all transcendent pieces of music".

"On her 2018 debut Communion, Park Jiha played an array of ancient Korean instruments including the piri, a double-reed bamboo flute that sounds like an oboe; the yanggeum, a hammered dulcimer and the saenghwang, a bamboo mouth organ. She wove those into an ensemble sound that also included saxophone, clarinet, vibraphone and percussion. On the follow-up, the extra instruments have been stripped away, leaving her to overlay her core instruments to hypnotic and resonant effect. All but one of the eight tracks are purely instrumental, creating eerie layers of ambient sound that fuse an Oriental vibe with the minimalist Western compositional style of the likes of Steve Reich, Jon Hassell and Michael Nyman".

"The unexpected wonders of Korean folk minimalism...".