All is calm, all is serene at tonight’s show by South Korean composer and multi-instrumentalist Park Jiha. St. George’s is a beautiful mix of old and new; a 200-year-old Georgian Church transformed into a concert hall in the 1990s. There is a quiet murmur as the audience arrives in anticipation of a very special and unique show, and in the hall, on a large stage, sits a compact selection of stands and tables holding the electronics, yanggeum, piri and saenghwang. There is no support act and no fanfare as Park Jiha walks on stage, composes herself, takes a sip of water and begins.
Park Jiha seamlessly mixes traditional instruments with modern techniques and electronics to blur the lines between musical-history and modernism and anyone who has heard her recent album All Living Things will have been utterly captivated by its beauty. As I said in my review it is ‘an honest celebration of the environmental world we seem to be bent on dismantling’. It may be a wonderfully immersive album to listen to through speakers or headphones but experiencing it live was even more special. You give yourself over to the moment and share it collectively with a few hundred other people in the room.
Tonight’s performance is a live recreation of All Living Things, and it unfolds in the same unhurried way as the album. This may be a practised set, but Jiha imbues it with the sense that everything has been written and performed just for this audience. The opening track sets the mood and feels like she is using it as a tuning fork to help the audience be in the same key as her. It beckons us in and welcomes us into the world of the album, what she calls “a tender and profound meditation on the miracle of life”.
There are a collection of wonderful looking instruments on stage and on ‘Grounding’ we get our first chance to hear the harp-like chime of the yanggeum (a hammered dulcimer) which creates constant notes on the lower strings while harmonies are picked out on the higher strings. But Jiha’s virtuosity is not limited to this, and on ‘Bloom’ we see her play the saenghwang, a large wooden mouth organ that actually looks someone has gathered up all the pipes from a church organ into a bundle you can hold in your hands to play. ‘A Story of Little Birds’ features the piri, a double-reeded instrument that creates a powerful sound akin to an oboe or saxophone despite its diminutive size. The skill is in the reed control and Jiha’s breath control is so good she gives us soft melodies as well draw out powerful keening notes.
Having the performance in a former church adds a spiritual layer to the performance and throughout the show it is impossible to take your attention off Park Jiha. Everyone watches attentively as she creates ambient backing tracks on the keyboard before moving unhurriedly to the other instruments on stage. Her concentration is complete as she reinterprets the electronic and analogue spell of the album which is a soundtrack to the micro and macro beauty of the environmental world.
After the gentle embrace of the last song, ‘Water Moon’, fades there is a small pause as the audience wakes from their reverie before delivering loud and sustained applause. Only then does Park Jiha shift from total concentration and breaks into a broad smile. She seems genuinely touched by the warmth of the applause, especially as this is her first time in Bristol.
For one perfect hour thoughts of trade squabbles, war and environmental disaster disappeared in the exquisite bubble that Jiha created for us tonight.
All Living Things is out now on Glitterbeat’s tak:til imprint
Park Jiha: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
Glitterbeat Records: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram |YouTube
I would also like to say a big thank you to Park Jiha’s PR agent Ilka Schlockermann who has been so helpful and supportive from my album review through to the concert (and all the other amazing artists she represents).
Setlist:
Intro
Grounding
Bloom
A Story of Little Birds
Growth Ring
Blown Leaves
Breath Again
Eternal Path
Water Moon
Review by Paul F Cook
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