My latest article for the Korea Times is essentially about the session band 동방의 빛, or ‘Light of the East,’ who recorded over 30 albums between 1973 and 1975, including the 14-volume ‘Golden Folk Album’ series and albums by Lee Jang-hui, Kim Se-hwan, Song Chang-sik, 4월과 5월 (April and May), and the duos Two Koreans and Hyeon-gyeong and Yeong-ae. They also did the soundtracks to the premier youth culture films of that era, the best-selling ‘Heavenly Homecoming of Stars’ and ‘March of Fools,’ both based on Choi In-ho novels. The music could be described as folk-rock, but it also incorporated synthesizers, and one song in particular, Kim In-soon’s ‘여고졸업반’ (Girls’ High School Graduating Class) predates the OMD song ‘Electricity’ by 4 years and stands out for me as the first synth-pop song (particularly since it wasn’t some obscure song – it was a number 1 hit). Unfortunately, though the film it served as a soundtrack for was a breakthrough for teen actress Im Ye-won (who became the ‘nation’s little sister’ for the latter half of the 1970s), the film itself was representative of the safe, inoffensive entertainment preferred by the dictatorship in the late 1970s, in contrast to the (then) new sounds found in the song.
Update:
I mentioned in the Korea Times article that the group was known as ‘Light of the East’ "retrospectively," but it seems that's not true - I did find a reference to them here in 1974 saying that Song Chang-sik was going to take over temporarily as the group's leader after Lee Jang-hui was injured a motorcycle accident, suggesting that they were more than just a session band (the guitarist for the band, Gang Geun-sik, played guitar on or arranged songs on some of Lee's earlier albums).
As well, this youtube page has two of their more experimental instrumental albums, while the Golden Folk Album series have all been uploaded to youtube (Volume 1 is here).
And last but not least, the person who tipped me off to 동방의 빛 being the group behind all of these albums (not sure if he wants to be named here) has uploaded a number of 70s mixes of Groovy Psych Folk, Psychedelic Go Go, Female Funk, and Jazz here.
Is "동방" a common expression for band names? I'm thinking specifically of 동방신기, or Eastern Gods Rising. (I've read and heard certain haters derisively refer to them as 동성신기, i.e., Gay Gods Rising. I've never heard their music before, so I have no opinion.)
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's that common, but then my knowledge of post-1970s groups is pretty limited, so who knows? (I thought of 동방신기 as well, despite having never listened to them).
ReplyDeleteNice piece. I always figured trot music was Korea’s venture into synth pop.
ReplyDeleteFair enough point - I have an LP from this series, which is likely from the early '70s, though there's no date. (To be sure, I have electronic organ songs released on compilations in 1970.) There were quite a few electronic organ LPs that were instrumental covers of popular songs (almost always trot) in the early 70s, but nothing with vocals mixed in. The earliest trot song I know of that might, sort of, pass the test is the Bunny Girls' '허락해 주세요' which hit the charts in July 1975. Still, while it has electronic elements at the beginning and end, they don't appear elsewhere. It's certainly nowhere near as prevalent as in '여고졸업반,' which to me sounds like something you might have heard by a synth-y new wave band in the early 80s. But it's clear that when folk and rock - and then synth music - became popular in Korea, trot quickly began adopting elements of these genres (to the point that the only defines them as 'trot' is the style of singing rather than instrumentation).
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